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!
HEREDITY
I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance--that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.
"YOU WERE THE SORT THAT MEN FORGET"
You were the sort that men forget;
Though I--not yet! -
Perhaps not ever.
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