Poems (Forrest)/Little brown hand

by Mabel Forrest

LITTLE BROWN HAND

To-morrow I wed with fair Yolande
Of the milk-white throat and the moth-white hand.
Many a league spreads her father's land.
Ah, never a rood had lost Brown Hand!
But where the pointed sun dirks fell, to slit the dusk of the trees apart
A starling sang in the green wildweed
. . . Yet . . . eagles mate with the eagle breed:
Oh Little Brown Hand you weary me; take your fingers out of my heart!

To-morrow the gold of Yolande's hair,
Will be laced with pearls moon-blanched and fair;
And hard white diamonds everywhere
Will fleck the plaits of that pale gold hair.
Brown Hands slung berries dusky red, on amber bosom and curved brown arm,
And in her eyes was the gipsy fire
That drives men mad with a long desire.
But Yolande's white warms not the blood, nor stirs the pulse from its sluggish calm.

To none does the house of Yolande yield:
Sixteen quarterings deck the shield—
A mailed hand on an azure field
A steel-blue dagger doth ever wield.
Lost Brown Hand had neither wealth nor kin:
A reckless wildweed that trailed apart
I grasped. But I did not mean to hold—
Yolande brings portion of much fine gold . . .
Oh, Little Brown Hand, you madden me, take your fingers out of my heart!