Among the myrtles, the speaker walks with an aching distress, sighing to Love, begging to know where his lost shepherdess can be found. Love tells him she’s scattered into every sweet thing in nature — her lip and cheek in a carnation, her eye in a pansy, the warm hue of her blood in peach bloom and rosebud. Seizing the idea, he eagerly picks the flowers one by one, intending to piece her back together, but they disappear the moment he gathers them. Love then explains the real meaning: the fading flowers are a portrait of his own short-lived joys. His hopes for her will wither just as quickly. The poem’s mood is quietly heartbroken — a delicate walk becomes a sharp lesson in loss, leaving behind nothing but the knowledge that beauty and longing are as brief as plucked petals.
MRS ELIZ: WHEELER, UNDER THE NAME OF THELOST SHEPHERDESS — Summary
Among the myrtles as I walk'd Love and my sighs thus intertalk'd: Tell me, said I, in deep distress, Where I may find my Shepherdess? --Thou fool, said Love, know'st thou not this? In every thing that's sweet she is. In yond' carnation go and seek, There thou shalt find her lip and cheek; In that enamell'd pansy by, There thou shalt have her curious eye; In bloom of peach and rose's bud, There waves the streamer of her blood. --'Tis true, said I; and thereupon I went to pluck them one by one, To make of parts an union; But on a sudden all were gone. At which I stopp'd; Said Love, these be The true resemblances of thee; For as these flowers, thy joys must die; And in the turning of an eye; And all thy hopes of her must wither, Like those short sweets here knit together.