ABSTRACT
First publ. in Marjorie Stone’s chapter ‘Bile and the Brownings’, in J. Woolford (ed.), Robert Browning in Contexts (Winfield, KS, 1998), pp. 213-30. Stone discovered the lines while examining some of EBB.’s MSS at Morgan: they occur in ‘the middle of an initial draft of “My Heart and I” ’ (p. 214). Stone dates the poem to ‘before late February 1855’ (p. 225), on the grounds that, as well as the draft of ‘My Heart and I’, the MS also contains an early draft of parts of Amy’s Cruelty, which (following Collections) she claims was sent to Marguerite Power on 26 Feb. 1855. There is, however, good reason for disputing the assertion that B. sent this or any other poem to Power on 26 Feb. 1855; see headnotes to Ben Karshook (p. 659) and May and Death (p. 361). It is more likely that Amy’s Cruelty was given to Power in France in 1856, along with B.’s May and Death; both appeared in The Keepsake for 1857. We therefore conclude that this poem was almost certainly written at some point before 29 June 1856, the date on which the Brownings left Paris.
