Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXVIII

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said,-he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo 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 quailedAs if God's future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine-and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availedIf, what this said, I dared repeat at last!