Lovesick Bilderdijk

This manuscript of a poem was given by a lovesick Bilderdijk to his London mistress on July 3, 1796, for her twentieth birthday. While in exile in London, he had started a passionate relationship with Katharina Wilhelmina Schweickhardt, although he was still married to Catharina Rebecca Woesthoven. In the manuscript, we can see an image of a medallion bearing her image.

The poem spoke of a ‘paternal’ kiss: ‘O Then let me hold you in my arms, / And let a tender, let a paternal kiss / Destinate the desires of my heart!’ The passionate words, however, do not seem so fatherly, nor does the dedication to the poem (after Aminta by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso): ‘Alla più vaga e cara virginella / Che mai spiegasse al vento chioma d'oro’ (‘To the loveliest and dearest maiden / Who ever gave her golden locks to the wind’).