I I TORE your letter into strips No bigger than the airy feathers That ducks preen out in changing weathers Upon the shifting ripple-tips. II 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?' III 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. IV 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. V 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. VI 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. VII 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. VIII 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE PROPOSAL TO ERECT A MONUMENT IN ENGLAND TO LORD BYRON by EMMA LAZARUS THE LONESOME CHILD by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE HAUNTED OAK by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE SONG OF HIAWATHA: HIAWATHA'S WOOING by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW L'EAU DORMANTE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LINES FROM A NOTEBOOK - APRIL 1805 by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |