Free Thoreau in Love by John Schuyler Bishop

with fog. The sails hung limply, and not a thing stirred, making it seem like they were in a Daguerreotype. The mate was at the wheel. Henry climbed to the poop deck. Behind them—finally, heading west!—an orange globe hung just above the horizon in the gray and blue gloom. Its reflection, an inviting path of yellowy-orange slashes, ran right to the ship, making quite an impression on Henry, who’d never seen anything like it.
    “What was the bell for?” asked Henry.
    “Fog,” said the mate. “But it’s not so bad as I thought.”
    Henry stayed on deck, absorbed by the beauty of the morning. He thought of Ben and how they’d slept in one another’s arms all night, the way he’d slept with John on cold nights. When the sun rose what seemed from there a few inches over the horizon, the fog thinned, the globe yellowed and the water turned to burgundy, and Henry finally understood what Homer meant by the wine-dark sea. While the mate attended to the fishing lines hung over the aft rail, Henry climbed down to the main deck. Ben appeared, checked on tiptoes to see where the mate was, and knelt before Henry. Quietly, he said,
    “Being your slave, what should I do but tend
    Upon the hours and times of your desire?”
    Henry was flattered. No, honored. In fact, he’d never been so honored by anyone. But he was also embarrassed and, more, afraid someone would see. “Ben, get up.” But Henry’s saying that sent Ben more forcefully into his role, as he declaimed,
    “I have no precious time at all to spend,
    Nor services to do, till you require .
    Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour. . . .”
    “Please, Ben. What if someone sees us?”
    “Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
    Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
    When you have bid your servant once adieu. . . .”
    “If someone sees us, they won’t understand.”
    “Nor dare I question with my jealous thought ,
    Where you may be, or your affairs suppose ,
    But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
    Save, where you are, how happy you make those. . . .”
    Defeated, Henry let Ben finish.
    “So true a fool is love that in your will,
    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.”
    Extending his hand, Henry said, “Get up, thou servant of mine.” Ben’s lower lip fell into his crescent smile as he rose. Henry said, “You know Shakespeare.”
    “I know love.”
    “You quote sonnets, you sing like a lark.”
    “There’s lots more too,” said Ben.
    Henry blushed but was saved from having to respond by Susan’s huffing onto the damp deck and nearly slipping on her derriere. After she recovered, she pointed east and said, “Have you ever seen such a sunrise?”
    It was a sight to behold, but not nearly so beautiful as Ben on his knees, declaiming his love. And it didn’t hold a candle to the wine-dark sea Henry had seen just minutes earlier. “No, never.”
    “I must tend to the porridge,” said Ben. Then, to Henry: “See you at breakfast, milord.” And he was off.
    “Milord?” said Susan.
    “He’s being playful,” said Henry. He and Susan stood at the rail, gazing across what by then was clear blue water, but all Henry’s thoughts were on Ben. Ben kneeling before him, holding Ben last night in their bunk. He wished Ben was beside him now, instead of Susan, who said, a bit irritably, “You seem in a daze.”
    “I am,” admitted Henry.
    “Didn’t you sleep well?”
    “No, very well.”
    “I knocked on your door, just moments after you went into your room. I wanted to talk to you.”
    Henry had forgotten the knock on the door.
    “I suppose I went off pretty quickly.”
    “I suppose you did. It was nothing important. I was having a difficult time.”
    “You look well now. Are you feeling better?”
    “I am. My stomach seems to have adjusted.” Susan put her hand gently on Henry’s arm, smiled when he didn’t protest. “Now aren’t you glad we didn’t take those steamy monsters, as you call them? We would