Ode aan haar

Vandaag wordt in dit land Stille Dinsdag genoemd. Zelf noem ik het mijn verjaardag... Ik ben weer een jaar ouder dan gisteren; iemand van iets meer dan middelbare leeftijd. Vanaf de andere kant van de ontbijttafel luisterde ik  geïnteresseerd maar met stijgende verbazing naar haar ode aan haar. Niet mijn persoon maar mijn kapsel in het licht van de opgaande zon was aanleiding voor die lofzang. Tja.

 

Sonnet XVIII

I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say
‘Take it.’ My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee.
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may

Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,—
Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died. 

Van: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

 

NEVER shall a young [wo]man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair. 

But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young [wo]men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.

I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my Dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.

Van: W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)