Myrtle's Hair Jewellery

Only a Curl

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

I.

FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land

    Unvisited over the sea,

Who tell me how lonely you stand

With a single gold curl in the hand

    Held up to be looked at by me, —

II.

While you ask me to ponder and say

    What a father and mother can do,

With the bright fellow-locks put away

Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay

    Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.

Shall I speak like a poet, or run

    Into weak woman's tears for relief ?

Oh, children ! — I never lost one, —

Yet my arm 's round my own little son,

    And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.

And I feel what it must be and is,

    When God draws a new angel so

Through the house of a man up to His,

With a murmur of music, you miss,

    And a rapture of light, you forgo.

V.

How you think, staring on at the door,

    Where the face of your angel flashed in,

That its brightness, familiar before,

Burns off from you ever the more

    For the dark of your sorrow and sin.

VI.

God lent him and takes him,' you sigh ;

    — Nay, there let me break with your pain :

God 's generous in giving, say I, —

And the thing which He gives, I deny

    That He ever can take back again.

VII.

He gives what He gives. I appeal

    To all who bear babes — in the hour

When the veil of the body we feel

Rent round us, — while torments reveal

    The motherhood's advent in power,

VIII.

And the babe cries ! — has each of us known

    By apocalypse (God being there

Full in nature) the child is our own,

Life of life, love of love, moan of moan,

    Through all changes, all times, everywhere.

IX.

He 's ours and for ever. Believe,

    O father ! — O mother, look back

To the first love's assurance. To give

Means with God not to tempt or deceive

    With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack.

X.

He gives what He gives. Be content !

    He resumes nothing given, — be sure !

God lend ? Where the usurers lent

In His temple, indignant He went

    And scourged away all those impure.

XI.

He lends not ; but gives to the end,

    As He loves to the end. If it seem

That He draws back a gift, comprehend

'Tis to add to it rather, — amend,

    And finish it up to your dream, —

XII.

Or keep, — as a mother will toys

    Too costly, though given by herself,

Till the room shall be stiller from noise,

And the children more fit for such joys,

    Kept over their heads on the shelf.

XIII.

So look up, friends ! you, who indeed

    Have possessed in your house a sweet piece

Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need

Be more earnest than others are,—speed

    Where they loiter, persist where they cease.

XIV.

You know how one angel smiles there.

    Then weep not. 'Tis easy for you

To be drawn by a single gold hair

Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair

 To the safe place above us. Adieu.

Prior to the undertakers taking Josephine’s body, Myrtle cut a lock of her daughter’s dark hair. The hair that Myrtle routinely washed, plaited, stroked and adored.  This lock she then sent to a hair artist to be made into a locket. In a printed catalogue she chose an understated but beautiful design. At the back of the catalogue a discreet guarantee written in tiny lettering, said locks of hair would not be mixed or substituted in the process. Myrtle balked at the thought of a stranger touching and looking after the lock and carelessly muddling up the precious hair, but her husband Gilbert assured her that her worries were foolish. 

Myrtle got out her poetry book entitled ‘Last Poems, 1862’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a popular Victorian poet, finding solace in ‘Only A Curl’. Just like Myrtle, the bereaved mother has lost a child and cherishes one curl of his hair as a memento. In the poem Galia Ofek deduces that the ‘curl’ is the only ‘physical presence of the departed’ and a ‘powerful spiritual connection between the living mother and her dead child’. Barrett Browning conveys that the lock of hair should not be allowed to become a symbol of their eternal and final separation, but rather ‘an image of almost divine or mystical unity between the dead and the living, a vibrant spiritual cord which ties the two worlds’ and two people together. Pamela A.Milller claims ‘jewellery had been made from hair or had incorporated hair for centuries but it was the Victorians who turned mourning and sentimental jewelry into a true industry’. Elizabeth Hallam and Jenny Hockey reasons ‘Human material that was regarded as ‘dead’ while the person was living, is thus transformed into a ‘living’ substance at death in the sense that it is reanimated as a possession capable of sustaining the deceased in close proximity to the bereaved. The physical durability of hair makes this possible as it stands in stark contrast to the instabilities of the fleshy body.” It is the only body part that endures so is therefore precious. Myrtle’s locket was a physical memorial and combined with mourning clothing, made death highly visible in Victorian culture. The locket is made of jet, a form of fossilized wood. Jet was one of the only forms of jewelry permitted to be worn under the strict Victorian code of mourning, particularly during half mourning. Inside the locket there are three small pearls which symbolize tears. The design of the hair is fluid and curvaceous. The curves and form suggest movement and are dynamic denoting life.  Shapes of solid colour created by multiple strands of hair contrast single strands delicately arranged, creating depth within the locket. The jagged edge of the jet locket juxtaposes the smooth form of the hair encased inside. A thin piece of glass separates Myrtle from the hair in the locket, much like her daughter whom she can no longer hold. The oval shape of the locket echoes the pearls and could be interpreted as one large tear. Today, society’s attitudes towards hair has changed. Physical reminders such as hair jewellery are not worn and are often viewed as macabre and distasteful.