9 1/2 Weeks

That's how long I have spared you my obsession with Ms. Browning's poetry, but I can resist no longer.  Her work is too good not to share.

Sonnets from the Portugeuse #8

by: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 pillow to thy head.

Go farther!  Let it serve to trample on.