Love In The Open Hand

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls,
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;


Not in a lover's knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain--
Semper Fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief in the brain:


Love in the open hand, nothing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have! -- and these are all for you."


- from the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay -