Lesbian Love Poems
GILLIAN SPRAGGS, EDITOR
love shook my senses
‘I love you with my life – ’tis so I love you’
I love you with my life – ’tis so I love you;
I give you as a ring
The cycle of my days till death:
I worship with the breath
That keeps me in the world with you and spring:
And God may dwell behind, but not above you.
Mine, in the dark, before the world’s beginning:
The claim of every sense,
Secret and source of every need;
The goal to which I speed,
And at my heart a vigour more immense
Than will itself to urge me to its winning.
Michael Field
Michael Field was the pen-name used by Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith
Cooper (1862–1913). Bradley, who was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, was
Cooper’s aunt, and helped to bring her up. They collaborated on twenty-seven
poetic tragedies and a number of volumes of poetry, choosing a male pseudonym
to gain a wider acceptance for their work. They were lovers (they saw their
relationship as a superior form of marriage), and their work includes a number
of love poems addressed to each other. They lived together throughout their lives,
and died within a few months of each other, of cancer.
More poems
Love Shook My Senses: Lesbian Love Poems
edited by Gillian Spraggs
The Women’s Press, London
ISBN 0 7043 4581 1
softcover, xvii + 167 pages
edited by Gillian Spraggs
The Women’s Press, London
ISBN 0 7043 4581 1
softcover, xvii + 167 pages
home > poems > michael field
page added to site on 1 June, 2008