The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 100. “As if an outcast” a selection of James Russell Lowell’s Sonnets

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“As if an outcast”

a selection of James Russell Lowell’s Sonnets

“No More But So?”

No more but so? Only with uncold looks,

And with a hand not laggard to clasp mine,

Think’st thou to pay what debt of love is thine?

No more but so? Like gushing water-brooks

Freshening and making green the dimmest nooks

Of thy friend’s soul thy kindliness should flow.

But if it is bounded by saying “no,”

I can find more of friendship in my books,

All lifeless though they be, and more, far more

In every simplest moss, or flower, or tree.

Open to me thy heart of heart’s deep core

Or never say that I am dear to thee;

Call me not Friend, if thou keep closed the door

That leads into thine inmost sympathy. [i]

- - - - - - - -

The soul would fain its loving kindness tell,

But custom hangs like lead upon the tongue;

The heart is brimful, hollow crowds among

When it finds one whose life and thoughts are well.

Up to the eyes its gushing love doth swell,

The angel cometh, and the waters move;

Yet it is fearful still to say “I love,”

And words come grating as a jangled bell.

O might we only speak but what we feel;

Might the tongue pay but what the heart doth owe,

Not heaven’s great thunder when deep peel on peel

It shakes the earth to rouse our spirits so

Or to the soul such majesty reveal

As two short words, half-spoken, faint and low. [ii]

- - - - - - - -

O child of Nature! O most meek and free,

Most gentle spirit of true nobleness!

Thou doest not a worthy deed the less

Because the world may not its greatness see.

What were a thousand triumphings to thee,

Who in thyself art as a perfect sphere

Wrapped in a bright and natural atmosphere

Of mighty-soulededness and majesty?

Thy soul is not too high for lowly things,

Feels not its strength seeing its brother weak,

Not for itself unto itself is dear,

But for that it may guide the wanderings

Of fellow-men, and to their spirits speak

The lofty faith of heart that knows no fear. [iii]

- - - - - - - -

I would not have this perfect love of ours

Grow from a single root, a single stem,

Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers

That idly hide Life’s iron diadem.

It should grow always like that Eastern tree

Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;

That love for one, from which there doth not spring

Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing.

Not in another world, as poets prate,

Dwell we apart, above the tide of things,

High floating o’er earth’s clouds on fairy wings,

But our pure love doth ever elevate

Into a holy bond of brotherhood

All earthly things, making them pure and good. [iv]

- - - - - - - -

To a Friend

One strip of bark may feed the broken tree,

Giving to some few limbs a sickly green;

And one light shower on the hills, I ween,

May keep the spring from dying utterly.

Thus seemeth it with these our hearts to be;

Hope is the strip of bark, the shower of rain,

And so they are not wholly crushed with pain

But live and linger on, for sadder sights to see.

Much do they err, who tell us that the heart

May not be broken; what, then, can we call

A broken heart, if this may not be so,

This death in life when, shrouded in its pall,

Shunning and shunned it dwelleth all apart,

Its power, its love, its sympathy laid low? [v]

- - - - - - - -

So may it be, but let it not be so,

O, let it not be so with thee, my friend;

Be of good courage, bear up to the end

And on thine after-way rejoicing go!

We all must suffer, if we aught would know;

Life is a teacher stern, and wisdom’s crown

Is oft a crown of thorns, whence, trickling down,

Blood, mixed with tears, blinding her eyes doth flow.

But Time, a gentle nurse, shall wipe away

This bloody sweat, and thou shalt find on earth

That woman is not all in all to Love.

But, living by a new and second birth

Thy soul shall see things below, above,

Grow bright and brighter to the perfect day. [vi]

- - - - - - - -

To ______

Deem it no Sodom-fruit of vanity,

Or fickle fantasy of unripe youth

Which ever takes the fairest shows for truth,

That I should wish my verse beloved of thee;

Tis love’s deep thirst which may not quenchèd be.

There is a gulf of longing and unrest,

A wild love-craving not to be repressed,

Whereto in all our hearts as to the sea

The streams of feeling do forever flow.

Therefore it is that thy well-meted praise

Falleth so shower-like and fresh on me

Filling those springs which else had sunk full low,

Lost in the dreary desert-sands of woe,

Or parched by passion’s fierce and withering blaze. [vii]

- - - - - - - -

My friend, adown Life’s valley, hand in hand,

With grateful change of grave and merry speech

Or song, our hearts unlocking each to each,

We’ll journey onward to the silent land.

And when stern Death shall loose that loving band,

Taking in his cold hand a hand of ours,

The one shall strew the other’s grave with flowers,

Nor shall his heart a moment be unmanned.

My friend and brother! if thou goest first,

Willt thou no more re-visit me below?

Yea, when my heart seems happy carelessly

And swells, not dreaming why, as it would burst

With joy unspeakable – my soul shall know

That thou, unseen, art bending over me. [viii]

- - - - - - - -

Silent as one who treads on new-fallen snow,

Love came upon me ere I was aware;

Not light of heart, for there was troublous care

Upon his eyelids, drooping them full low.

As with sad memory of a healèd woe,

The cold rain shivered in his golden hair

As if an outcast-lot had been his share

And he seemed doubtful wither he should go.

Then he fell on my neck, and in my breast

Hiding his face awhile, sobbed bitterly

As half in grief to be so long distressed,

And half in joy at his security—

At last, uplooking from his place of rest,

His eyes shone blessedness and hope on me. [ix]

- - - - - - - -

A gentleness that grows of steady faith;

A joy that sheds its sunshine everywhere;

A humble strength and readiness to bear

Those burdens which strict duty ever lay’th

Upon our souls – which unto sorrow saith

“Here is no soil for thee to strike thy roots.

Here only grow those sweet and precious fruits

Which ripen for the soul that well obey’th

A patience which the world can neither give

Nor take away. A courage strong and high

That dares in simple usefulness to live,

And without one sad look behind, to die

When that day comes.” – These tell that our love

Is building for itself a home above. [x]

—James Russell Lowell,

1830-1840