Thomas Hardy — The Rival

     I determined to find out whose it was -      The portrait he looked at so, and sighed; Bitterly have I rued my meanness         And wept for it since he died!      I searched his desk when he was away,      And there was the likeness—yes, my own! Taken when I was the season's fairest,         And time-lines all unknown.      I smiled at my image, and put it back,      And he went on cherishing it, until I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,         But that past woman still.       Well, such was my jealousy at last,       I destroyed that face of the former me; Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman         Would work so foolishly!