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.