Isn't it refreshing to see a straightforward verse once in a while? The only open question seems to be whether the beloved will write nothing at all, as Hasrat opines, or whether the lover is ready for anything she might write. Her writing nothing at all is a distinct possibility, as in 27,2 . But the phrasing of 'what she will write in reply' suggests that some kind of a (hostile?) response is expected. Either way, as Nazm observes, this simple little verse is the tip of a real iceberg of implication . We can judge that (1) this is one of a series of letters in a correspondence; (2) the speaker is obsessed with the correspondence and broods about it; (3) the speaker is confident that he knows the temperament and habits of his correspondent; (4) the speaker is sure that the expected reply will not be satisfactory; (5) the speaker is undeterred, and is already planning his next letter; (6) the speaker seems to have no special hopes or grounds for optimism. The tone is entirely matter-of-fact. A letter-writer simply arranges in his own mind the timing of a letter. No whining, no self-pity, no sentimentality. All the grief, passion, and doom are not in the flat, plain words, but in the implications. The kind of carrier in which rolled-up letters were hand-delivered: graphics/letterholder.jpg