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.