SpokenVerse | Song "Nay but you, who do not love her.." by Robert Browning (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded November 2013 | Updated October 2024, 22 minutes ago.
Elizabeth Barrett who later became his wife did not have blonde hair. I can't find any mention of how she felt about this poem of Robert's to a former mistress.
Elizabeth's book, Sonnets from the Portuguese, refers to Robert's pet name for her. He called her My Little Portuguese because of her dark complexion. Her family let it be known that her skin colour was due to illness, but the probable truth was that she had an ancestor who was a native of Africa and a slave. Her family's fortune was made in Jamaica by the exploitation of slave labour. It was likely that this was the reason her father kept her indoors and forbade her to marry: miscegenation was unlawful in some countries.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws
When she did eventually marry Robert at the age of forty her father disinherited her. She must have loved Robert because she gave up a considerable fortune for him. Even now, all the biographies of her I have read don't mention these apparently still unpalatable inferences.
The Maiden with the Golden Hair - 1895 - Sir Frederic Leighton.
Woman Drying Her Hair, 1923, by Joseph DeCamp - here:
oilpaintingfactory.com/english/oil-painting-109804.htm
Shimada Mage by Jean-Pierre Leclercq - here:
esglaiart.com/en/jean-pierre-leclercq/294-shimada-mage-blonde-hair-canvas.html
Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught—-speak truth—-above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?
Because, you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught—-speak truth—-above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!
Elizabeth Barrett who later became his wife did not have blonde hair. I can't find any mention of how she felt about this poem of Robert's to a former mistress.
Elizabeth's book, Sonnets from the Portuguese, refers to Robert's pet name for her. He called her My Little Portuguese because of her dark complexion. Her family let it be known that her skin colour was due to illness, but the probable truth was that she had an ancestor who was a native of Africa and a slave. Her family's fortune was made in Jamaica by the exploitation of slave labour. It was likely that this was the reason her father kept her indoors and forbade her to marry: miscegenation was unlawful in some countries.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws
When she did eventually marry Robert at the age of forty her father disinherited her. She must have loved Robert because she gave up a considerable fortune for him. Even now, all the biographies of her I have read don't mention these apparently still unpalatable inferences.
The Maiden with the Golden Hair - 1895 - Sir Frederic Leighton.
Woman Drying Her Hair, 1923, by Joseph DeCamp - here:
oilpaintingfactory.com/english/oil-painting-109804.htm
Shimada Mage by Jean-Pierre Leclercq - here:
esglaiart.com/en/jean-pierre-leclercq/294-shimada-mage-blonde-hair-canvas.html
Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught—-speak truth—-above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?
Because, you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught—-speak truth—-above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!
