Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

May and Death

I WISH that when you died last May,

Charles, there had died along with you

Three parts of spring’s delightful things;

Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!

There must be many a pair of friends

Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm

Moon-births and the long evening-ends.

III

So, for their sake, be May still May!

Let their new time, as mine of old,

Do all it did for me: I bid

Sweet sights and songs throng manifold.

Only, one little sight, one plant,

Woods have in May, that starts up green

Save a sole streak which, so to speak,

Is spring’s blood, spilt its leaves between,—

That, they might spare; a certain wood

Might miss the plant; their loss were small:

But I,—whene’er the leaf grows there,

Its drop comes from my heart, that ’s all.

(1857.)