AD MANUS PUELLAE

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.