Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/152

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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 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.

it be right to give what I can give?

To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears

As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years

Re-sighing on my lips renunciative

Through those infrequent smiles, which fail to live

For all thy adjurations? O my fears,

That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,

So to be lovers; and I own and grieve

That givers of such gifts as mine are, must

Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!

I will not soil thy purple with my dust,

Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,

Nor give thee any love. . . which were unjust.

Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.