This Hand . . .

ELINOR WYLIE

HIS hand you have observed, Impassive and detached. With joints adroitly curved, And lingers deftly matched:

Blue-veined and yellowish,

Ambiguous to clasp,

And secret as a fish,

And sudden as an asp:

It doubles to a fist,

It droops, composed and chill;

The socket of my wrist

Controls it to my will.

It leaps to my command

Tautened, or trembling lax;

It lies within your hand

Anatomy of wax.

If I had seen a thorn

Broken to grape-vine bud;

If I had ever borne

Child of our mingled blood;

Elixirs might escape;

But now, compact as stone,

My hand preserves a shape

Too utterly its own.