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.