Explore "The Rival" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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!