Angelina Weld Grimké

Touch me, touch me, Little cool grass fingers, Elusive, delicate grass fingers. With your shy brushings, Touch my face-- My naked arms-- My thighs-- My feet. Is there nothing that is kind? You need not fear me. Soon I shall be too far beneath you, For you to reach me, even, With your tiny, timorous toes.

There is a tree, by day, That, at night, Has a shadow, A hand huge and black, With fingers long and black. All through the dark, Against the white man’s house, In the little wind, The black hand plucks and plucks At the bricks. The bricks are the color of blood and very small. Is it a black hand, Or is it a shadow?

When the green lies over the earth, my dear, A mantle of witching grace, When the smile and the tear of the young child year Dimple across its face, And then flee, when the wind all day is sweet With the breath of growing things, When the wooing bird lights on restless feet And chirrups and trills and sings To his lady-love In the green above, Then oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.

But the green is hiding your curls, my dear, Your curls so shining and sweet; And the gold-hearted daisies this many a year Have bloomed and bloomed at your feet, And the little birds just above your head With their voices hushed, my dear, For you have sung and have prayed and have pled This many, many a year.

And the blossoms fall, On the garden wall, And drift like snow on the green below. But the sharp thorn grows On the budding rose, And my heart no more leaps at the sunset glow. For oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.

I should like to creep Through the long brown grasses That are your lashes; I should like to poise On the very brink Of the leaf-brown pools That are your shadowed eyes; I should like to cleave Without sound, Their glimmering waters, Their unrippled waters, I should like to sink down And down And down ... And deeply drown.

Would I be more than a bubble breaking? Or an ever-widening circle Ceasing at the marge? Would my white bones Be the only white bones Wavering back and forth, back and forth In their depths?

I love your hands: They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands; Hair grows on the back near the wrist ... I have seen the nails broken and stained From hard work. And yet, when you touch me, I grow small ....... and quiet ........ ....... And happy .......... If I might only grow small enough To curl up into the hollow of your palm, Your left palm, Curl up, lie close and cling, So that I might know myself always there, ....... Even if you forgot.

--I weep-- Not as the young do noisily, Not as the aged rustily, But quietly. Drop by drop the great tears Splash upon my hands, And save you saw them shine, You would not know I wept.

The sky was blue, so blue that day And each daisy white, so white, O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey And night again be night.

I knew, I knew. Well, if night is night, And the grey skies greyly cry, I have in a book for the candle light, A daisy dead and dry.

Twin stars through my purpling pane, The shriveling husk Of a yellowing moon on the wane-- And the dusk.