Melanie Ochs

“A Pause of Thought

I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.

I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.

Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o'er.

Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?--
Yet gave it all the same.

Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.”
― Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems

“Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.”
― Joseph Addison

“A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.”
― George Gordon Byron

“I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair