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Ernest Christopher Dowson - Ad Manus Puellae
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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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