The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (9.1896)

CO

o Hand and Heart

“ Sour both ! ” I gasped, and shook myself away ;

Required my mare : he fetched her, proudly staid ;

Tightened the girths, and closed the curb-chain’s play :

“ So hearts,” sadly he said,

And, stooping, set me deftly in my seat,

Pulled straight my skirt, and to the stirrup led

My spurred foot, kissed it, ranged the reins, and, sweet,

“ Light hand—light heart,” he said.

The soft, brown glove brushed o’er his sun-brown veins ;
He breathed as though it burnt him ; there, instead

Of its doe-skin, seemed still the wine’s wet stains :

“ Hands are but hands,” he said.

I pricked her ; felt the bridle draw my hand ;

Bent down an icy face and burning head,

And passed. Yet so, his eyes pierced mine to brand
The cc Heart of hearts,” he said.

# * * *

The yellow, green-girt road rushed by and roared
Beneath, beside us. Like a silver shred

O’er briar and bank the thin moon swept and soared :

“ Hands have high ways,” he’d said.

I leant back, straight and stiff, against the reins,

Yet pressed her when she slackened ; half afraid

To hear my heart beat; till the grass-grooved lanes—
(“Hearts have by-ways,” he’d said),

Dulled