Explore "Ne Sit Ancillæ Tibi Amor Pudor" by Robert Louis Stevenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THERE'S just a twinkle in your eye / That seems to say I _might_, if I / Were only bold enough to try / An arm about your waist.
I hear, too, as you come and go, / That pretty nervous laugh, you know; / And then your cap is always so / Coquettishly displaced.
Your cap! the word's profanely said.
That little top-knot, white and red, / That quaintly crowns your graceful head, / No bigger than a flower, / Is set with such a witching art, / Is so provocatively smart, / I'd like to wear it on my heart, / An order for an hour!
O graceful housemaid, tall and fair, / I love your shy imperial air, / And always loiter on the stair / When you are going by.
A strict reserve the fates demand; / But, when to let you pass I stand, / Sometimes by chance I touch your hand / And sometimes catch your eye.