Classic Poem

This hand you have observed,
Impassive and detached,
With joints adroitly curved,
And fingers neatly matched:

Blue-veined and yellowish,
Ambiguous to clasp,
And secret as a fish,
And sudden as an asp:

It doubles to a fist,
Or droops composed and chill;
The socket of my wrist
Controls it to my will.

It leaps to my command,
Tautened, or trembling lax;
It lies within your hand
Anatomy of wax.

If I had seen a thorn
Broken to grape-vine bud;
If I had ever borne
Child of our mingled blood;

Elixirs might escape;
But now, compact as stone,
My hand preserves a shape
Too utterly its own.