Praising Her Hands

Your hands I love so well that I could lie

All day and hold their coolness to my lips,

Or trace the violets in their ivory,

And learn their shape from wrist to finger-tips.

Pale I have seen them as white lilies are,

And then I thought I knew no lovelier thing,

Till summer's sun espied them from afar,

And kissed them, as a captive, not a king.

Now, whether brown becomes them more than white,

I cannot tell, they are too dear to me-

Your hands, more delicate than birds in flight,

Sweeter to smell than blossomed hawthorn-tree.

So proud they lie, and quiet, who should guess

These hands know moods of sudden tenderness?