The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 51. ...a moment leaning beside you...

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Three Poems from Towards Democracy

Parted Lips

Parted lips, between which love dwells –

Only a little space of breath and shadow,

Yet here the gate of all the world to me.

Summer Heat

Sun burning down on back and loins, penetrating the

skin, bathing their flanks in sweat,

Where they lie naked on the warm ground, and the ferns

arch over them,

Out in the woods, and the sweet scent of fir-needles

Blends with the fragrant nearness of their bodies;

In-armed together, murmuring, talking,

Drunk with wine of Eros’ lips,

Hourlong, while the great wind rushes in the branches,

And the blue above lies deep beyond the fern-fronds and

fir-tips;

Till, with the midday sun, fierce scorching, smiting,

Up from their woodland lair they leap, and smite,

And strike with wands, and wrestle, and bruise each other,

In savage play and amorous despite.

A Rivederci

Once more in dreams, wandering along the road by

the sea,

I terry a moment leaning my elbows on the wall beside

you—

I look out over the blue waves with your eyes, and feel

the sun on me as you that feel it;

My mother it is that sits in the balcony among her

pots of oleander in the little narrow street, my boat that

lies half-heeled upon the sand;

These are my mountains that I love,

This is your face and mine clear-cut upon the air,

Your life-warm lips I kiss and mine you kiss again,

And laughing part with a bright a rivederci.

—Edward Carpenter,

circa 1900[i]