The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 99. “Something Natural”

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“Something Natural”

The Moon

My soul was like the sea

Before the moon was made;

Morning in vague immensity,

Of its own strength afraid,

Unrestful and unstaid.

Through every rift it foamed in vain

About its earthly prison,

Seeking some unknown thing in pain

And sinking restless back again.

For yet no moon had risen:

Its only voice a vast dumb moan

Of utterless anguish unspeaking,

It lay unhopefully alone

And lived but in an aimless seeking.

So was my soul: but when it was full

Of unrest to o’erloading,

A voice of something beautiful

Whispered a dim foreboding,

And yet so soft, so sweet, so low,

It had not more of joy than woe:

And, as the sea doth oft lie still,

Making his waters meet,

As if by an unconscious will,

For the moon’s silver feet,

Like some serene, unwinking eye

That waits a certain destiny,

So lays my soul within mine eyes

When thou its sovereign moon didst rise.

And now, howe’er its waves above

May toss and seem uneaseful,

One strong, eternal law of love

With guidance sure and peaceful,

As calm and natural as breath

Moves its great deeps through Life and Death. [i]

A Reverie

In the twilight deep and silent

Comes thy spirit unto mine;

When the moonlight and the starlight

Over cliff and woodland shine,

And the quiver of the river

Seems a thrill of joy benign.

Then I rise and wander slowly

To the headland by the sea,

When the evening star throbs setting

Through the cloudy cedar tree,

And from under, mellow thunder

Of the surf comes fitfully.

Then within my soul I feel thee

Like a gleam of other years.

Visions of my childhood murmur

Their old madness in my ears.

Till the pleasance of thy presence

Cools my heart with blissful tears.

All the wondrous dreams of boyhood –

All youth’s fiery thirst of praise –

All the surer hopes of manhood

Blossoming in sadder days –

Joys that bound me; griefs that crowned me

With a better wreath than bays –

All the longings after freedom –

The vague love of human kind,

Wandering far and near at random

Like a winged seed in the wind –

The dim yearnings and fierce burnings

Of an undirected mind –

All of these, oh, best beloved,

Happiest present dreams and past.

In thy love find safe fulfilment,

Ripened into truths at last;

Faith and beauty, hope and duty

To one center gather fast.

How my nature, like an ocean,

At the breath of thine awakes.

Leaps its shores in mad exulting

And in foamy thunder breaks;

Then down-sinking, lieth shrinking

At the tumult that it makes!

Blazing Hesperus hath sunken

Low within the pale-blue west.

And with golden splendor crowneth

The horizon’s piny crest;

Thoughtful quiet stills the riot

Of wild longing in my breast.

Home I loiter through the moonlight.

Underneath the quivering trees,

Which, as if a spirit stirred them,

Sway and bend, till by degrees

The far surge’s murmur merges

In the rustle of the breeze. [ii]

Something Natural

When first I saw thy soul-deep eyes,

My heart yearned to thee instantly

Strange longing in my soul did rise;

I cannot tell the reason why,

But I must love thee till I die.

The sight of thee hath well-nigh grown

As needful to me as the light;

I am unrestful when alone.

And my heart doth not beat aright

Except it dwell within thy sight.

And yet – and yet – selfish love!

I am not happy even with thee;

I see thee in thy brightness move.

And cannot well contented be,

Save thou soundest shine alone for me.

We should love beauty even as flowers

For all, ‘t is said, they bud and blow.

They are the world’s as well as ours –

But thou – alas! God made thee grow

So fair, I cannot love thee so! [iii]

—James Russell Lowell,

circa 1839