From “The Third Book of Songs” of Underneath the Bough, I present today what I consider one of the most important poems by Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper. In it, they defiantly proclaim in front of the world, “pressing sore,” their beautiful forbidden passion: “My Love and I took hands and swore, / Against the world, to be / Poets and lovers evermore,” laughing, dreaming and singing to the symbols of death, “Indifferent to heaven and hell.” They seek the “fast-locked souls” faithful to poetry, “Who never from Apollo fled.”

NB. Shakespeare (born in April) is indeed spelled “Shakspere” in the poem.

IT was deep April, and the morn
Shakspere was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My Love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgment never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.

These words express truthfully what this blog stands for!

Sources of the poem: Underneath the Bough, A Book of Verses by Michael Field (American edition), Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine (1898). A transcription of the English edition of 1893 has been given by Dickinson College, but it was not thoroughly checked; the poem can be seen here.