Poems (Hooper)/Jealousy

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

JEALOUSY.

I stand beside the silent couch
 Whence Hope, and Life, and Love have fled;
The wild voice of the wintry wind
 Alone doth break the silence dread.
It will not wake you, O my wife!
 Never on earth you'll wake again.
Those close-shut lids are done with tears;
 That frozen brow is done with pain.
Never again my jealous fears
 Will wake your cold and scornful smile;
Never again I'll wring your heart,
 Breaking my own the bitter while.
Yet, even now, the while I gaze
 Upon your silent, frozen rest,
The olden fears, the olden doubts,
 Return anew to wring my breast.

You loved me not, O bitter truth!
 Though known too late, yet learned too well.
And did you love another? Lo!
 The dead the long-hid secret tell!
Your desk before me shattered lies,
 And now I hold with frenzied clasp
Those hidden letters, treasured long;
 Your secret is within my grasp.
Now I shall know if you were pure
 As yonder snow before it fell;
Or fouler than the pitchy smoke
 That reeks from out the depths of hell!

My hand is on the folded page
 Wherein your life-long secret lies;
And yet I pause before I slay
 The Past and all its memories!
O loved one! loved so long and well!
 It may be in an instant more
That I shall loathe thee with a hate
 Surpassing e'en my love of yore.
And I, perchance, to-morrow morn
 Will stand beside the churchyard sod,
With shame and curses in my heart:—
 Never, never—so help me God!

The embers glow upon the hearth;
 I give into their red embrace
Your treasured letters folded still,
 Pale ashes now their only trace;
And may this act atone, O love!
 For all my jealous doubts and fears,
That darkened so with misery
 Our wedded life these long sad years.
I trust you now, alas! too late!
 Rest, with this last kiss on your brow;
If you have sinn'd, God knows, not I!
 To me for aye you're spotless now.