THE TORN LETTER

I tore your letter into strips

No bigger than the airy feathers

That ducks preen out in changing weathers

Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

In darkness on my bed alone

I seemed to see you in a vision,

And hear you say: “Why this derision

Of one drawn to you, though unknown?”

Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course,

The night had cooled my hasty madness;

I suffered a regretful sadness

Which deepened into real remorse.

I thought what pensive patient days

A soul must know of grain so tender,

How much of good must grace the sender

Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

Uprising then, as things unpriced

I sought each fragment, patched and mended;

The midnight whitened ere I had ended

And gathered words I had sacrificed.

But some, alas, of those I threw

Were past my search, destroyed for ever:

They were your name and place; and never

Did I regain those clues to you.

I learnt I had missed, by rash unheed,

My track; that, so the Will decided,

In life, death, we should be divided,

And at the sense I ached indeed.

That ache for you, born long ago,

Throbs on; I never could outgrow it.

What a revenge, did you but know it!

But that, thank God, you do not know.