Dreams of Absent Lovers

Ingredients:
A short series of poems by six female poets, beginning and ending with
Mary Wilkins
and sandwiched in between the five lesbian poets
Matilda Betham Edwards,
Aphra Behn,
Marie Madeleine,
Katharine Lee Bates, and
Wu Tsao.

Directions:

Now Is The Cherry In Blossom (Mary Wilkins)
Now is the cherry in blossom, Love,
Love of my heart, with the apple to follow;
Over the village at nightfall now
Merrily veers and darts the swallow.

At nightfall now in the dark marsh grass
Awakes the chorus that sings old sorrow;
The evening star is dim for the dew,
And the apple and lilac will bloom to-morrow.

The honeysuckle is red on the rock;
The willow floats over the brook like a feather;
In every shadow some love lies hid —
And you and I in the world together.

A Valentine (Mathilda Betham-Edwards)

What shall I send my sweet today,
  When all the woods attune in love?
  And I would show the lark and dove,
That I can love as well as they.

I'll send a locket full of hair, -
  But no, for it might chance to lie
  Too near her heart, and I should die
Of love's sweet envy to be there.

A violet is sweet to give, -
  Ah, stay! she'd touch it with her lips,
  And, after such complete eclipse,
How could my soul consent to live?

I'll send a kiss, for that would be
  The quickest sent, the lightest borne,
  And well I know tomorrow morn
She'll send it back again to me.

Go, happy winds; ah, do not stay,
  Enamoured of my lady's cheek,
  But hasten home, and I'll bespeak
Your services another day!

 

The Dream (Aphra Behn)

All trembling in my arms Aminta lay,
Defending of the bliss I strove to take;
Raising my rapture by her kind delay,
Her force so charming was and weak.
The soft resistance did betray the grant,
While I pressed on the heaven of my desires;
Her rising breasts with nimbler motions pant;
Her dying eyes assume new fires.
Now to the height of languishment she grows,
And still her looks new charms put on;
Now the last mystery of Love she knows,
We sigh, and kiss: I waked, and all was done.

`Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew,
Which still was panting, part of it was true:
Oh how I strove the rest to have believed;
Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!
 

 Foiled Sleep (Marie Madeleine)

And when I shut my eyes, forsooth,
I cannot banish from my sight
  The vision of her slender youth.

She stands before me lover-wise,
  Her naked beauty fair and slim,
She smiles upon me, and her eyes
  With over fierce desire grow dim.

Slowly she leans to me. I meet
  The passion of her gaze anew,
And then her laughter, clear and sweet,
  Thrills all the hollow silence through.

O, siren, with the mocking tongue!
  O beauty, lily-sweet and white!
I see her, slim and fair and young.
  And ah! I cannot sleep tonight.

 

If You Could Come (Katharine Lee Bates)
My love, my love, if you could come once more
From your high place,
I would not question you for heavenly lore,
But, silent, take the comfort of your face.

I would not ask you if those golden spheres
In love rejoice,
If only our stained star hath sin and tears,
But fill my famished hearing with your voice.

One touch of you were worth a thousand creeds.
My wound is numb
Through toil-pressed, but all night long it bleeds
In aching dreams, and still you cannot come.

 

Bitter Rain (Wu Tsao)

Bitter rain in my courtyard
In the decline of Autumn,
I only have vague poetic feelings
That I cannot bring together.
They diffuse into the dark clouds
And the red leaves.
After the yellow sunset
The cold moon rises
Out of the gloomy mist.
I will not let down the blinds
Of spotted bamboo from their silver hook.
Tonight my dreams will follow the wind,
Suffering the cold,
To the jasper tower of your beautiful flesh.


After the Rain (Mary Wilkins)
  It had rained all night, but the sun shone in the morning. The cottage-roofs steamed in the sun; the roses in the garden were still heavy with rain and draggled with garden-mold; the wet trees gave out green lights; little rain-pools shone in the road like liquid gold, and the sparrows dipped in them. It had rained all night, but the sun shone in the morning.

  The lover whom love had forsaken looked out of his window. All night had he lain awake, listening to the rain on the roof, and longing for his lost love, while the memory of her caresses clung to his soul as sweet and evasive as the perfume of the roses in the garden.

  It had rained all night, but the sun shone in the morning. The lover whom love had forsaken looked out of his window. "My love has forsaken me," he said, "but it has stopped raining."

Two more poets in the comments: