| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | Sonnets from the Portuguese
II. ‘What can I give thee back, O liberal’ | | By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
| | | 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| The colours 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. | | | | |
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