Not Jealous.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2017, 14 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Not Jealous.

“ On, Charlie, toll me true,” she said, And the golden head dropped low, While a tremulous flush crept into her check, Kissed by the firelight’s glow— Tell me, I shall not be jealous, dear, Am 1 the first to fill your heart, Or has another more lovely than I Formed of yotu life a part ? “ In the long ago, ere our lives had met, It must have been. Come, confess. ’Tis no sin. Your share I freely forgive. For her loss Fll make redress. ‘By added affection. Tell her name, And the shade of her eyes and hair. Why did yon part ? Did you feel regret ? Was her beauty dark or fair ?” “ Dark, my love, but memory recalls Its glow in the twilight haze How it shone to comiottl In that old time She was the light of my days. “ My nut-brown love 1 she’d have died for me With her fragrant breath on my lips, My soul grew calm as the busy world Grows still ’neath the son’s eclipse. Ma ny lovers adored. She was kind to all. Yon may guess how it ended—in smoke. Fiery love burns slowly but surely away, Its ashes ’twere sin to invoke. • 1 met her yesterday on the street. Grant me yoar pity, her balmy breath Dead longing revived, but I thought of you And fled as one flees from death. “Whatl tears, my darling? Light of my home, Don’t shrink in the shadow so far. You asked for the truth, which I frankly gave, And you’re jealous of my cigar.” Alice Denmos.