Alternatives

You mistake me, Madame, I ask for nothing.
I give arrogantly and with indifference.
These are no wall-fruits, soft and sugary, I offer you,
But dragon-berries,
Burnt black with their own fire,
Grown on brambles in the Courts of Destiny.
You may refuse them if you please,
Since choice is not denied you.
Then you will be lone as a rattling leaf
On an upland oak-tree,
Flinging its single shadow

Across a treeless snow.