As I remember the first fair touch
Of those beautiful hands that I love so much,
I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled,
Kissing the glove that I found unfilled--
When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow,
As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!"
And dazed and alone in a dream I stand
Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand.
When first I loved, in the long ago,
And held your hand as I told you so--
Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss,
And said "I could die fora hand like this!"
Little I dreamed love's fulness yet
Had to ripen when eyes were wet,
And prayers were vain in their wild demands
For one warm touch of your beautiful hands.
Beautiful Hands! O Beautiful Hands!
Could you reach out of the alien lands
Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night,
Only a touch--were it ever so light--
My heart were soothed, and my weary brain
Would lull itself into rest again;
For there is no solace the world commands
Like the caress of your beautiful hands.
* * * * *
Violently winking at the mist that blurs my sight, I regretfully
awaken to the here and now. And is it possible, I sorrowfully muse,
that all this glory can have fled away?--that more than twenty long,
long years are spread between me and that happy night? And is it
possible that all the dear old faces--O, quit it! quit it! Gather the
old scraps up and wad 'em back into oblivion, where they belong!
Yes, but be calm--be calm! Think of cheerful things.
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