28 My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

XXIX
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,--he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing, Yet I wept for it!--this,. . . the paper's light. . . Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed As if God's future thundered on my past. This said, I am thine--and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast. And this. . . O Love, thy words have ill availed If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!