All items

Edward Carpenter
Description:

Edward Carpenter published this poem in praise of queer desire in his an anthology Towards Democracy.

Text:
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;
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Text:
My love is lessened and must soon be past. I never promised such persistency In its condition. No, the tropic tree Has not a charter that its sap shall last Into all seasons, though no Winter cast The happy leafing. It is so with me: My love is less, my love is less for thee.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Description:

This excerpt from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem, The Bride's Prelude", shows a coded Victorian language that speaks about the queering of race and refer's to the bride's room as a "chamber", suggesting some sort of forced or arranged marriage. There is a lot of reference to gold and jewels on the bride's head in this first section of Rossetti's poem, which alludes to Egyptian culture. None of Rossetti's poems really addresses or blatantly discusses the mullatto woman or Black woman (or any woman of color, for that matter), but in these codes that reference different geographical parts of the world and how it is used in juxtoposition with palesness and whitness form this queering of race when compared to Euro-centric, white features that are ideal in Victorian England. 

Text:
“Sister,” said busy Amelotte  To listless Aloÿse;  “Along your wedding-road the wheat  Bends as to hear your horse's feet,  And the noonday stands still for heat.”  Amelotte laughed into the air  With eyes that sought the sun:  But where the walls in long brocade  Were screened, as one who is afraid 
Lionel Johnson
Description:

Lionel Johnson's poem describes queerness as an evil angel he must fight in order to live up to his religious ideals.

Text:
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust To rid the world of penitence: Malicious Angel, who still dost My soul such subtile violence! Because of thee, no thought, no thing, Abides for me undesecrate: Dark Angel, ever on the wing, Who never reachest me too late! When music sounds, then changest thou Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Mona Caird
Text:
“Our standards are all changing,” said Miss Du Prel. “It does not follow that they are changing for the worse.” “It seems to me that they are not so much changing, as disappearing altogether,” said Temperley cheerfully, “especially among women. We hear a great deal about rights, but we hear nothing about duties.”
Lionel Johnson
Description:

Lionel Johnson wrote this bitter sonnet in 1892, supposedly to repudiate his former friend, Oscar Wilde, whom he had introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas. 

Text:
I hate you with a necessary hate. First, I sought patience: passionate was she: My patience turned in very scorn of me, That I should dare forgive a sin so great, As this, through which I sit disconsolate; Mourning for that live soul, I used to see; Soul of a saint, whose friend I used to be: Till you came by! a cold, corrupting, fate.
Anne Lister
Description:

This text is an excerpt from Anne Lister's original diaries that was written on September 20th, 1824. The title of the text is "No Priest But Love- Excerpts From The Diaries of Anne Lister." These diary entries were written between 1824 and 1826 and act as window into the life a lesbian who lived during the period right before the Victorian Era. Her diary entries depict her life in Yorkshire, Northern England and document her sexual and romantic relationships with several different women. Her entries account for her daily life, her relationships, her gender identity, the harassment she faced as a lesbian, along with her economic struggles. 

Text:
Monday 20 Sept.
Edward Carpenter
Text:
CHILD, the hours that breathe around thee   Know thee most divinely fair ; In its love the last enwound thee,   And the next shall take thy hair Backward from thy forehead's whiteness   While upon thy lips it fold Kisses, love-endued with lightness   Lest thou guess what none have told.
Emily Pepys
Description:

This short diary excerpt by the ten-year-old Emily Pepys was found and published in a larger collection,The Journal of Emily Pepys, for the first time by Gillian Avery in 1984. 

Text:
  Thursday, 25th July.
A.E. Housman
Text:
  THE laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can ; Not I : let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me ; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them ? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way.
Alfed Tennyson
Description:

Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Mermaid” was originally published in the book Poems, Chiefly Lyrical which was the first publication of a collection of Tennyson’s earliest poetic works. It was published in 1830 when Tennyson was only 21 years old and the collection generally received mixed reviews. “The Mermaid” itself is not one of Tennyson’s most famous poems, but it displays forms of non-heteronormative sexuality and an early representation of a femme fatale type character prior to the publication of “Lady of Shalott.” 

Text:
I   Who would be A mermaid fair, Singing alone, Combing her hair Under the sea, In a golden curl With a comb of pearl, On a throne?   II   I would be a mermaid fair; I would sing to myself the whole of the day; With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
James Thomson
Description:

The first half of a poem, reprinted in the monthly publication Our Corner

Text:
Four broad beech-trees great of hold, Crowned the green, smooth-swelling knoll; There She stood, the glorious form Dazzling with its beauty warm; Naked as the sun of noon, Naked as the midnight moon: And around her, tame and mild, All the forest creatures wild— Lion, panther, kid, and fawn,
A.E.Housman
Text:
O youth whose heart is right,   Whose loins are girt to gain The hell-defended height   Where Virtue beckons plain; Who seest the stark array   And hast not stayed to count But singly wilt assay   The many-cannoned mount:
Olive Schreiner
Text:
Birds sang, turf came to the water-edge, and trees grew from it. Away off among the trees I saw beautiful women walking. Their clothes were of many delicate colours and clung to them, and they were tall and graceful and had yellow hair. Their robes trailed over the grass. They glided in and out among the trees, and over their heads hung yellow fruit like large pears of melted gold.
Description:

A newspaper article discussing the differing treatment from the police of upper class and lower class men implicated in the Cleveland Street scandal. 

Text:
We are exceedingly glad that the horrible scandal which Reynolds’s Newspaper was the first to bring under the notice of the general public has at last come more prominently forward through the proceedings at Bow-’street Police-court. The police have been deliberately employed in attempting to hush up the whole matter.
Christina Rossetti
Text:
BY day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair :   But all night as the moon so changeth she ;   Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy And subtle serpents gliding in her hair. By day she wooes me to the outer air,   Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety :   But through the night, a beast she grins at me,
Marc-André Raffalovich
Text:
You are to me the secret of my soul And I to you what no man yet has been. I, your Prometheus, fire from Heaven stole And for my theft the world's revenge is keen. What I have done for you no man has done; I have nor begged nor bought a common bliss, But what you are to me you were to none.
Edward Carpenter
Description:

Edward Carpenter published this poem in praise of queer desire in his literary work "Towards Democracy." 

Text:
You, proud curve-lipped youth. with brown sensitive face, Why, suddenly, as you sat there on the grass, did you turn full upon me those twin black eye of yours With gaze so absorbing so intense, I a strong man trembled and was faint?  Why in a moment between me and you in the full summer afternoon did Love sweep- leading after it in procession
Edward Carpenter
Description:

Edward Carpenter was a British poet, socialist, and LGBT activist. He published "To A Stranger" in his book Towards Democracy. In the poem, he addresses a presumably queer person telling them that eventually their love will be recognized.

Text:
  O faithful eyes, day after day as I see and how you--unswerving faithful and beautiful--going about your ordinary work unnoticed,   I have noticed--I do not forget you.   I know the truth the tenderness the courage, I know the longings hidden quiet there.   Go right on. Have good faith yet--keep that your unseen treasure untainted.
A. E. Housman
Text:
THE time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place ; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Text:
TRUE genius, but true woman ! dost deny Thy woman's nature with a manly scorn, And break away the gauds and armlets worn By weaker women in captivity ? Ah, vain denial ! that revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn :— Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn, Floats back dishevelled strength in agony, Disproving thy man's name. And while before
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Text:
THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand ! whose soul, amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance And answers roar for roar, as spirits can : I would some mild miraculous thunder ran Above the applauded circus, in appliance Of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,— Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,
Amy Levy
Text:
UP those Museum steps you came, And straightway all my blood was flame,                O Lallie, Lallie ! The world (I had been feeling low) In one short moment's space did grow                A happy valley. There was a friend, my friend with you ;
Marc-Andre Raffalovich
Text:
O fair as those I love, and sweet and fair As those whose sweetness is so fair to me, O dearer than the love my love does dare Hardly to greet when sight grows ecstasy, As strange as any idol of the past Whose youth mine worshipped in a youthful trance, Are not thine tenderness and strength? And hast