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.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning