Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnets from the&nb ...

Sonnets from the Portuguese (18)

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

XVIII.

I NEVER gave a lock of hair away

To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,

Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully

I ring out to the full brown length and say

“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;

My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,

Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,

As girls do, any more. It only may

Now shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears,

Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside

Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears

Would take this first; but Love is justified:

Take it thou, … finding pure, from all those years,

The kiss my mother left here when she died.