Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine---
But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then love me, Love! look on me---breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The above poem is from Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, the book Angel gave Buffy for her eighteenth birthday.  I highly recommend it; the poems are lovely.  I think the writers picked the perfect book for Angel to give to Buffy--several describe their relationship and feelings beautifully.  However, I thought this one would make for a wonderful letter from Buffy to Spike, in my deluded little world of Buffy/Spike romance.  Ergo, the inclusion of this poem.  If you're interested, I think the following one is absolutely Angel:

Can 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.
Belovèd, I love only thee! let it pass.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning