Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese. 8. What can I give thee back, O liberal

What can I give thee back, O liberal
And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
And laid them on the outside of the-wall
For such as I to take or leave withal,
In unexpected largesse? am I cold,
Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
High gifts, I render nothing back at all?
Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.
Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run
The colors from my life, and left so dead
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
To give the same as pillow to thy head.
Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

1. Bianca among the Nightingales
2. Lord Walter's Wife
3. Substitution
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 26. I lived with visions for my company
5. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 16. And yet, because thou overcomest so

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