Judy Garland? Anne Edwards? Barron Polan? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: The following romantic lines present a declaration of love. They are part of a larger poem:
For it was not into my ear you whispered,
but into my heart.
It was not my lips you kissed,
but my soul.
These words have been attributed to Judy Garland, the actress and singer from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I am skeptical because I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please help me to determine the correct phrasing and attribution?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Judy Garland died in 1969. In 1974 “McCall’s” magazine published an article titled “Under the Rainbow: The Lost Childhood of Judy Garland” by Anne Edwards. The article was an excerpt from a forthcoming biography by Edwards who later became known as “The Queen of Biography” for publishing books about Maria Callas, Shirley Temple, Vivien Leigh, Barbra Streisand, and others. The article discussed the literary aspirations of Judy Garland:1
As Christmas, 1939, approached, she decided that when her contract was over she would become a writer. She spoke to her close friend, Barron Polan, telling him, “There are just so many things locked up in my head. I feel that if there was a can opener that could open my brain, all these thinkings and feelings would gush out like some unstoppable water tap.”
Polan encouraged Garland to write down her thoughts, and she did:
By Christmastime she had enough to fill a small book. In perhaps one of her first totally private acts she hand-copied the poetry, giving the copy to a printer to bind in tan leather. She gave it to Barron Polan for Christmas, and Polan has held on to the book throughout the years.
One poem in Garland’s book was titled “My Love Is Lost”. The text was reprinted in “McCall’s” magazine. Here are some lines from the poem which is about the disappearance of love. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:2
My love is lost.
…
Now, nothing but memories of every smile, every kiss, and, above all, every word.
For ’twas not into my ear you whispered but into my heart.
’Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
The original lines by Garland used the literary contraction ’twas instead of “it was”.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Anne Edwards published “Judy Garland: A Biography” the following year in 1975. The poem “My Love Is Lost” was reprinted in the book; hence, the lines under examination achieved further circulation.3
In 1977 Elaine Partnow published her pathbreaking compilation “The Quotable Woman: 1800-1975” which included the lines and cited the biography by Edwards:4
Judy Garland (1922-1969)
For ’twas not into my ear you whispered but into my heart.
’Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
Quoted in Judy Garland by Anne Edwards, “My Love Is Lost”
In 1994 the lines appeared in “The Guinness Dictionary of Quotations for All Occasions” compiled by Gareth Sharpe:5]
For ’twas not into my ear you whispered
but into my heart;
’Twas not my lips that you kissed
but my soul.
Judy Garland (1922-69) American singer and actress
In 2001 a slightly altered version of the lines appeared in “The Everything Wedding Vows Book” by Janet Anastasio and Michelle Bevilacqua. The literary contraction ’twas was changed to “it was”:6
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
—Judy Garland
In 2006 the version of the lines given immediately above appeared in the compilation “Chicken Soup for the Girl’s Soul: Real Stories by Real Girls About Real Stuff” within an article titled “My First Kiss” by Khristine J. Quibilan.7
In conclusion, Judy Garland deserves credit for these lines which appear in her poem “My Love Is Lost”. Garland gave a handwritten manuscript containing the poem and other material to her friend Barron Polan in 1939. The original poem employed the word ’twas. Polan kept the bound manuscript and shared the poem with Garland’s biographer Anne Edwards who published it in a magazine article in 1974. The accuracy of this story is dependent on the veracity of Polan.
Image Notes: Picture of a rainbow from Stainless Images (Ramone) at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Michael Bradshaw whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1974 June, McCall’s, Volume 101, Number 9, Article: Under the Rainbow: The Lost Childhood of Judy Garland by Anne Edwards, Poem: My Love Is Lost by Judy Garland, Quote Page 78, The McCall Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1974 June, McCall’s, Volume 101, Number 9, Article: Under the Rainbow: The Lost Childhood of Judy Garland by Anne Edwards, Poem: My Love Is Lost by Judy Garland, Quote Page 75, The McCall Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1975 Copyright, Judy Garland: A Biography by Anne Edwards, Appendices: Judy Garland’s Book of Poems, Poem: My Love Is Lost, Quote Page 275 and 276, Simon and Schuster, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1977, The Quotable Woman: 1800-1975, Compiled and edited by Elaine Partnow, Entry: Judy Garland, Quote Page 370, Corwin Books, Los Angeles, California. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1994 Copyright, The Guinness Dictionary of Quotations for All Occasions, Compiled by Gareth Sharpe, Topic: Declarations of Love, Quote Page 53, Column 2, Guinness Publishing, Enfield, Middlesex. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2001 Copyright, The Everything Wedding Vows Book by Janet Anastasio and Michelle Bevilacqua with Leah Furman and Elina Furman, Revised and Expanded Second Edition, Chapter 6: Great Thoughts, Quote Page 105, Adams Media Corporation, Holbrook, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2006, Chicken Soup for the Girl’s Soul: Real Stories by Real Girls About Real Stuff by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Hansen, and Irene Dunlap, Chapter: My First Kiss by Khristine J. Quibilan, Quote Page 245, Scholastic Inc., New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎