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!