Irreparableness

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    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.