The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 27. …when we meet next in quietude…

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“…when we meet next in quietude…”

(Edmund Gosse, the 19th century poet, historian and translator’s love letter to William Hamo Thornycroft are remarkable survivors. The following short note, from a winter’s day long ago, forms the most beautiful Haibun. So much is said without needing to be said, and then a poem opens up the floodgates.)

Board of Trade, [London] S. W.

18.12.79 [Thursday, December 18th, 1879]

My dear Hamo –

Were you not rather tired on Saturday? I ached in every bone, and lay in bed till 12 next day. After getting off my skates, I came and stood above you at the head of the lake. It was too dark for me to distinguish any one but you: I stayed there watching you talking and meditatively pirouetting on the ice till I made up my mind to go. I hope you saw the splendid bar of crimson in the west, behind the trees.

You have been busy this week, I expect. I have been doing a great deal since I saw you. I shall have – I hope, rather an important poem to read you when we meet next in any quietude. For the moment, I send you a sonnet, fantastic and very unintelligible, I daresay, to most people . . . .

Think ever kindly of

Thine

Edmund W. G.

To H. T.

When by the fire we sit with hand in hand,

My spirit seems to watch beside your knee,

Alert and eager, at your least command,

To do your bidding over land and sea.

You sigh – and, of that dubious message fain,

I scour the world to bring you what you lack,

Till from some island of the spicy main

The pressure of your fingers calls me back;

You smile—and l, who love to be your slave,

Post round the orb at your fantastic will,

Though, while my fancy skims the laughing wave

My hand lies happy in your hand, and still;

Nor more from fortune or from life would crave

Than that dear silent service to fulfill.[i]

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