Poems (Hooper)/Jealousy
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 claspThose 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 moreThat 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 embraceYour 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.