 | Poems and Sonnets |  |
106
DEATH'S LIPS AND PALMS.
There are two crowns I covet most of all—One that the fair white brows of poets wear,
That singers only have the right to share,
The other that a woman's grace lets fall
Upon the head of him she wills to call
Her knight, and whom she singleth out to bear
Her banner; but as yet alas! my hair
Is neither shadowed by a laurel pall,
Nor have my lips been crowned with Love's long kiss;
I wait for both—I wait the most for this;
I wait—and it may be that no warm grasp
May round my living brow the former clasp,
That I may never know the latter bliss,
Till lips and brow Death's lips and rough hands rasp.
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