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
Hath 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.