Edmund Gosse.
BY THE WELL.
Hot hands that yearn to touch her flower-like face,
With fingers spread, I set you like a weir
To stem this ice-cold stream in its career,—
And chill your pulses there a little space;
Brown hands, what right have you to claim the grace
To touch her head so infinitely dear?
Learn courteously to wait and to revere,
Lest haply ye be found in sorry case,
Hot hands that yearn!
But if ye pluck her flowers at my behest,
And bring her crystal water from the well,
And bend a bough for shade when she will rest,
And if she find you fain and teachable,
That flower-like face, perchance, ah! who can tell?
In your embrace may some sweet day be found,
Hot hands that yearn!
Edmund Gosse.
A GARDEN PIECE.
Among the flowers of summer-time she stood,
And underneath the films and blossoms shone
Her face, like some pomegranate strangely grown
To ripe magnificence in solitude;
The wanton winds, deft whisperers, had strewed
Her shoulders with her shining hair outblown,
And dyed her robe with many a changing tone
Of silvery green, and all the hues that brood
Among the flowers;
She raised her arm up for her dove to know
That he might perch him on her lovely head;
Then I, unseen, and rising on tip-toe,
Bowed over the rose-barrier, and lo,
Touched not her arm, but kissed her lips instead
Among the flowers!
Edmund Gosse.