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.

More poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

XI - And therefore if to love can be desert

And therefore if to love can be desert, / I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale

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XXXV - If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange / And be all to me? Shall I never miss

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XXVIII - My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! / And yet they seem alive and quivering

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Work

WHAT are we set on earth for ? Say, to toil; / Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

All poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning →