H. D.

From “Hesperides”

I SHOULD have thought

In a dream you would have brought

Some lovely perilous thing:

Orchids piled in a great sheath,

As who would say, in a dream,

“I send you this,

Who left the blue veins

Of your throat unkissed.”

Why was it that your hands,

That never took mine—

Your hands that I could see

Drift over the orchid heads

So carefully;

Your hands, so fragile, sure to lift

So gently, the fragile flower stuff—

Ah, ah, how was it

You never sent, in a dream,

The very form, the very scent,

Not heavy, not sensuous,

But perilous—perilous!—

Of orchids, piled in a great sheath,

And folded underneath on a bright scroll,

Some word:

Flower sent to flower;

For white hands the lesser white,

Less lovely, of flower leaf.

Or,

Lover to lover—no kiss,

No touch, but forever and ever this!