Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Irreparableness

I HAVE been in the meadows all the day
And gathered there the nosegay that you see
Singing within myself as bird or bee
When such do field-work on a morn of May.
But, now I look upon my flowers, decay
Has met them in my hands more fatally
Because more warmly clasped,--and sobs are free
To come instead of songs. What do you say,
Sweet counsellors, dear friends ? that I should go
Back straightway to the fields and gather more ?
Another, sooth, may do it, but not I !
My heart is very tired, my strength is low,
My hands are full of blossoms plucked before,
Held dead within them till myself shall die. 

1. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 30. I see thine image through my tears to-night
2. To Flush, My Dog
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 20. Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 12. Indeed this very love which is my boast
5. Aurora Leigh. Ninth Book

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