595. Sonnets from the Portuguese XVIII

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806—1861)

  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.