Poetry
by Allen Ginsberg
Some think the love of boys is wicked in the world, forlorn
Character corrupting, worthy mankind’s scorn
Or eyes that weep and breasts that ache for lovely youth
Have no mouth to speak for mankind’s general truth
Nor hands to work manhood’s fullest delight
Nor hearts to make old women smile day and night
Nor arms to warm young
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by Walt Whitman
When I heard at the Close of the Day
(No. 11, from ‘Calamus’)
When I heard at the close of the day how I had
been praised in the Capitol, still it was not
a happy night for me that followed,
And else when I caroused – nor when my favorite plans were
accomplished – was I really happy,
But
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by William Blake
from Songs of Experience
The GARDEN of LOVE
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love,
That
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by William Shakespeare
Sonnets to W.H.
(who some belive is Willie Hughes, a boy-actor on the Elizabethan stage with whom the playwright had a long affair.)
Sonnet 2
(In which the bard encourages his lover to sire a child so that his beauty may be preserved.)
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy
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translated by John Frederick Nims
©1998 by The University of Chicago
36. My lover stole my heart, just over there
– so gently! – and stole much more, my life as well.
And there, all promise, first his fine eyes fell
on me, and there his turnabout meant no.
He manacled me there; there let me go;
There I bemoaned my
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Ghazl No. 10 from the Divan of Hafiz
by Hafiz i-Shirazi
His mop of hair tangled, sweating, laughing and drunk,
Shirt torn, singing poems, flask in hand,
His eyes spoiling for a fight, his lips mouthing “Alas!”
Last night at midnight he came and sat by my pillow.
He bent his head to my ear and said, sadly,
“O, my ancient lover,
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