Change Upon Change

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning — a poem card from Justes Mots

This poem uses seasonal transformation as a metaphor for emotional devastation, observing that nature's changes from spring to winter mirror the speaker's loss of love and beauty following betrayal. Barrett Browning connects external decay to internal sorrow, suggesting that if the natural world transforms, the human heart cannot remain unchanged. The work captures the finality and irrevocability of love's dissolution.

Five months ago the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed within the sedge,
And we were lingering to and fro,
Where none will track thee in this snow,
Along the stream, beside the hedge.
Ah, Sweet, be free to love and go!
For if I do not hear thy foot,
The frozen river is as mute,…

Themes: sympathy · grief · love · reflection