Sonnet XXVIII: My Letters

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!