#6 Neil Powell, *Gay Love Poetry* (1997)

[emma_in_dream]

Neil Powell’s anthology of gay love poetry is a very pleasing mix. He has arranged it thematically, and then, within those categories, chronologically.

For reasons which have to do with the history of gay life and the history of literature, the main periods represented are the classical era, the Elizabethan era and contemporary poetry. I understand this though I do find the transitions a little jarring sometimes. One minute you are in the midst of an Elizabethan allegory; the next it’s the brisk clang of nineteenth-century optimism.

I do love the range of authors represented - from the obvious like Shakespeare and Byron, to the crazy like the Earl of Rochester, and a host of modern poets who I had not otherwise read.

I was particularly pleased to see the inclusion of works which celebrate love between men but were not (so far as is known) written by men who had male/male sex. Tennyson’s *In Memoriam* is one of my favourite poems, commemorating one of the two great loves of his life (Arthur Hallam, the other being his wife).



CXXIX

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.