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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (born March 6, 1806, near Durham, Durham county, England—died June 29, 1861, Florence, Italy) English poet whose reputation rests chiefly upon her love poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh, the latter now considered an early feminist text. Her husband was Robert Browning. Political and social themes embody Elizabeth’s later work. She expressed her intense sympathy for the struggle for the unification of Italy in Casa Guidi Windows (1848–51) and Poems Before Congress (1860). In 1857 Browning published her verse novel Aurora Leigh, which portrays male domination of a woman. In her poetry she also addressed the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, the child labor mines and mills of England, and slavery, among other social injustices. Although this decreased her popularity, Elizabeth was heard and recognized around Europe. Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Florence on June 29, 1861.

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Irreparableness

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