Roscoe Purkapile

She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign. Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark. But she never complained. She said all would be well, That I would return. And I did return. I told her that while taking a row in a boat I had been captured near Van Buren Street By pirates on Lake Michigan, And kept in chains, so I could not write her. She cried and kissed me, and said it was cruel, Outrageous, inhuman! I then concluded our marriage Was a divine dispensation And could not be dissolved, Except by death. I was right.