Part of the Price

Take back, my friend, the gifts once given. / No fairer find I this side Heaven / With which to bless thee, than thine own / Resource of blessing. Mine alone / To render what is mine to lose. / No niggard am I with it. Choose! / Lavish, I keep not any part / Of that great price within my heart. / Wilt thou the quiet comfort have? / Thine be it, daily, to the grave! / The courage, shining down from one / Whose answering eyes put out the sun? / The tenderness that touched the nerve / Like music? Oh, I bid these serve / Thee, soothe thee, watchful of thy need / While mine is unattended; feed / Thy heart while mine goes famished. Glad, / I give the dearest thing I had. / Impoverished, can I find or spare / Aught else to thee of rich or rare? / Sweet thoughts that through the soul do sing, / And deeds like loving hands that cling, / And loyal faith -- a sentry -- nigh, / And prayers all rose-clouds hovering high? / Nay, nay; I keep not any. Hold / The wealth I leave with fingers cold / And trembling in thine own. One thing / Alone I do deny to bring / And give again to thee. Not now, / Nor ever, Dear, shalt thou learn how / To wrest it from me. Test thy strength! / By the world's measures, height or length -- / Too weak art thou, too weak to gain, / By sleight of tenderness or snatch of pain / -- At thine own most or least -- to take from me / Mine own ideal lost -- and saved -- of thee.