At Baia

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."

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)