‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave’: with its depiction of seemingly unbreakable commitment, this passage from the Old Testament Song of Solomon, also known as ‘The Song of Songs’, has long been associated with marriage. The full text features two lovers, each of whom extols the physical perfection of and passion for the other. The speakers continuously compare themselves to ideals found in nature, with similes like ‘As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons’, painting a picture of universal harmony that fits a couple embarking on a matrimonial journey. Katherine Mansfield's work, on the other hand, is not known for such ‘glaring optimism’. The married couples she describes in her stories are far less romantically effusive, referring to each other in terms of ‘pals’ or even pets. Yet exceptions to these platonic partnerships can be found in her poetry, in particular the poems she composed under the pseudonym Elizabeth Stanley for publication in the Athenaeum in 1919, at the beginning of her husband John Middleton Murry's tenure as editor. Though many of these poems are often overlooked or dismissed, ‘the tired diction she returned to when she wrote as “Elizabeth Stanley” the kind of verse that met Murry's editorial taste’, as Vincent O’Sullivan put it, the exploration of the relationship between lover and beloved may seem surprising to those who are only familiar with Mansfield's fiction. In fact, I would argue that what O’Sullivan describes as ‘tired diction’ is actually Mansfield's response to, and reworking of, ‘The Song of Songs’.

‘The Song’s’ promise of ‘love […] strong as death’ would have been particularly compelling to Mansfield in the year leading up to her marriage to Murry when her tuberculosis worsened considerably, and German bombing in France, where she had travelled to ameliorate her condition, meant returning to England was almost impossible. To make matters worse, their eventual reunion was short-lived, and the wedding on which she pinned so much of her hope became the cause of her resentment, both of her husband and her physical condition.