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!