The Torn Letter

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.