The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 35. ...call me thine own...

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A Pair of Joyous Poems

Your Heart is a Music-Box, Dearest

Your heart is a music-box, dearest!

With exquisite tunes at command,

Of melody sweetest and clearest,

If tried by a delicate hand;

But its workmanship, love, is so fine,

At a single rude touch it would break;

Then oh! be the magic key mine,

Its fairy-like whispers to wake!

And there's one little tune it can play,

That I fancy all others above –

You learned it of Cupid one day –

It begins with and ends with “I love!”

“I love!”

My heart echoes to it, “I love!”[i]

Call Me Pet Names

Call me pet names, dearest! call me a bird,

That flies to thy breast at one cherishing word –

That folds its wild wings there, ne'er dreaming of flight,

That tenderly sings there in loving delight!

Oh! my sad heart keeps pining for one fond word –

Call me pet names, dearest! call me thy bird!

Call me sweet names, darling! call me a flower,

That lives in the light of thy smile each hour,

That droops when its heaven – thy heart – grows cold,

That shrinks from the wicked, the false, and bold,

That blooms for thee only, through sunlight and shower;

Call me pet names, darling! call me thy flower!

Call me fond names, dearest! call me a star,

Whose smile’s beaming welcome thou feel’st from afar,

Whose light is the clearest, the truest to thee,

When the “night-time of sorrow” steals over life’s sea!

Oh! trust thy rich [barque] where its warm rays are,

Call me pet names, darling! call me thy star!

Call me pet names, darling! call me thine own!

Speak to me always in love’s low tone!

Let not thy look nor thy voice grow cold:

Let my fond worship thy being enfold;

Love me for ever, and love me alone!

Call me pet names, darling! call me thine own![ii]

—Frances Sargent Osgood,

1830s

"Two Women"

Eunice Pinney, circa 1815