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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
96

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABB ACXCX ADXDD EAEAA
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 806
Words 158
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson was born in 1867 at Lea in Kent England he was an English poet novelist and writer of short stories associated with the Decadent movement Most of his life was spent in France more…

All Ernest Christopher Dowson poems | Ernest Christopher Dowson Books

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    "Ad Manus Puellae" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/12766/ad-manus-puellae>.

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