I WAS always a lover of ladies' hands! Or ever mine heart came here to tryst, For the sake of your carved white hands' commands: The tapering fingers, the dainty wrist; The hands of a girl were what I kissed. I remember an hand like a fleur-de-lys When it slid from its silken sheath, her glove; With its odours passing ambergris: And that was the empty husk of a love. Oh, how shall I kiss your hands enough? They are pale with the pallor of ivories; But they blush to the tips like a curled sea-shell: What treasure, in kingly treasuries, Of gold, and spice for the thurible, Is sweet as her hands to hoard and tell? I know not the way from your finger-tips, Nor how I shall gain the higher lands, The citadel of your sacred lips: I am captive still of my pleasant bands, The hands of a girl, and most your hands. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB by GEORGE GORDON BYRON SOMETHING BEYOND by MARY CLEMMER AMES HUDSON VENUS OF THE LOUVRE by EMMA LAZARUS BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE by EZRA POUND MUSIC, FR. TWELFTH NIGHT by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE STOLEN CHILD by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS DRINKING ODE by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE |