Sonnets from the Portuguese 28: My Letters! - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white ! —
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.

This said, ... he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To 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 quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine — and so its ink has paled

With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed,
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (b. March 6, 1806, Kelloe, Durham, England; died Died June 29, 1861, Florence, Italy).

Read Translation in Portuguese / Ler tradução em Português