Classic Poem

I have given you love and labour without measure,
And many fruits and flowers from out my hands,
And robbed imagination's dainty lands,
If so I might, with a gold touch of pleasure,
Be as a sunbeam brightening your leisure,
And you might wind your hair in statelier bands:
And you have given me—a few stray sands—
To cherish, and to ponder on, and treasure.

These thing I have given you—life, and toil, and trouble,
And laurels, and the whisper of a name,
And many a blood-red sacrifice of flame,
And daily aspiration of pure breath;
I can but give you now my lungs' last bubble,—
There is only left the sacrifice of death.