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.
