Classic Poem

HE’S GONE to England for a wife
Among the ladies there;
And yet I know a lass he deemed
The rarest of the rare.
He’s gone to England for a wife;
And rich and proud is he.
But he was poor and toiled for bread
When first he courted me.

He said I was the best on earth;
He said I was “his life”;
And now he thinks of noble birth,
And seeks a lady wife!
He said for me alone he’d toil
To win an honest fame;
But now no lass on southern soil
Is worthy of his name!

I think I see his lady bride,
A fair and faultless face,
And nothing in her heart beside
The empty pride of race.
And she will grace his gilded home,
The wife his gold shall buy;
But will she ever dream of him,
Or love as well as I?