LXXX

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 lovers’-knot, not in a ring / Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain— / Semper fidelis, where a secret spring / Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain: / Love in the open hand, no thing 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 arc all for you.”