What Would I Give?
What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through,Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do;Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all.
What would I give for words, if only words would come;But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb:Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say.
What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears,To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years,To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again.
Words in this poem
- thaw v. i.
- To melt, dissolve, or become fluid; to soften; -- said of that which is frozen; as, the ice thaws.
- ingrain a.
- Dyed with grain, or kermes. [Pref. in- in + grain kermes. See Engrain, Grain.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
What Would I Give? is in the public domain. This text is taken from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #16950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Christina Rossetti, What Would I Give?, in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-goblin-market/what-would-i-give.html, id L04314.
Form and metre
What Would I Give? is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.9 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic hexameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA- throughA · doA · all
- 2 AA- comeA · dumbA · say
- 3 AA- tearsA · yearsA · again
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, | 13 | ············· |
| Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do; | 14 | ˘/········/˘·· |
| Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all. | 12 | ············ |
| What would I give for words, if only words would come; | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
| But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb: | 12 | ····/˘·/·/˘· |
| Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say. | 15 | ·/˘·······/···· |
| What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years, | 13 | ············· |
| To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again. | 13 | ····/˘·····˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.