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Title: Back from a Two-years' Sentence
Author: James Whitcomb Riley [
More Titles by Riley]
Back from a two-years' sentence!
And though it had been ten,
You think, I were scarred no deeper
In the eyes of my fellow-men.
"My fellow-men--?" Sounds like a satire,
You think-- and I so allow,
Here in my home since childhood,
Yet more than a stranger now!
Pardon--! Not wholly a stranger--,
For I have a wife and child:
That woman has wept for two long years,
And yet last night she smiled--!
Smiled, as I leapt from the platform
Of the midnight train, and then--
All that I knew was that smile of hers,
And our babe in my arms again!
Back from a two-years' sentence--
But I've thought the whole thing through--,
A hint of it came when the bars swung back
And I looked straight up in the blue
Of the blessed skies with my hat off!
O-ho! I've a wife and child:
That woman has wept for two long years,
And yet last night she smiled!
[The end]
James Whitcomb Riley's poem: Back from a Two-years' Sentence
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