Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration.
Lesbian
Thursday, 25th July.
The analysis of these cases leads directly up to a question of the first importance: What is sexual inversion? Is it, as many would have us believe, an abominably acquired vice, to be stamped out by the prison? or is it, as a few assert, a beneficial variety of human emotion which should be tolerated or even fostered? Is it a diseased condition which qualifies its subject for the lunatic asylum? or is it a natural monstrosity, a human "sport," the manifestations of which must be regulated when they become antisocial?
LOVER'S SILENCE.
The wind blows down the dusty street;
And through my soul that grieves-
It brings a sudden odour sweet:
A smell of popular leaves.
O leaves the herald in the spring,
O freshness young and pure,
Into my weary soul you bring
The vigor to endure
The wood is near, but out of sight,
Where all the populars grow;
Straight up and tall and silver white;
They quiver in a row.
Am I waking, am I sleeping?
As the first faint dawn comes creeping
Thro' the pane, I am aware
Of an unseen presence hovering,
Round, above, in dusky air ;
A downy bird, with an odorous wing,
That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume,
As sweet as love, as soft as death,
Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom.
My heart in some dream-rapture saith,
It is she. Half in a swoon,
I spread my arms in slow delight.—
O prolong, prolong the night,
GIVE me, O friend, the secret of thy heart
Safe in my breast to hide,
So that the leagues which keep our lives apart
May not our souls divide.
I DREAMED my Lady and I were dead
And dust was either heart;
Our bodies in one grave were laid,
Our souls went far apart,
Hers with the saints for aye to dwell
And mine to lie and pine in Hell.
But when my Lady looked for me
And found her quest in vain,
For all that blesséd company
She nothing knew but pain.
She cried: "How feigned your praising is!
Your God is love, and love I miss."
The hills whereon her tear-drops fell
Were white with lily-flowers,
FORGOTTEN seers of lost repute
That haunt the banks of Acheron,
Where have you dropped the broken lute
You played in Troy or Calydon ?
O ye that sang in Babylon
By foreign willows cold and grey,
Fall'n are the harps ye hanged thereon,
Dead are the tunes of yesterday !
De Coucy, is your music mute,
The quaint old plain-chant woe-begone
That served so many a lover's suit ?
Oh, dead as Adam or Guédron !
Then, sweet De Caurroy, try upon
Your virginals a virelay ;
ALL the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
Then to me so lying awake a vision
Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,
Softly touched mine eyelids and lips ; and I too,
Full of the vision,
Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters ;
Saw the reluctant