A pair of black eyes Of a charming size And a lip so prettily curled, O! Are enough to capsize The intention wise Of any man in the world, O! For a pretty smile Is a mighty wile For a heart, for a heart that is light, O! And a girl like a dove Makes a man fall in love, Though he knows that it isn’t right, O! For love is a thing That will quit the lonely king To make sunny the cot of the peasant, O! And it folds its gauzy wing-- In short--it is a thing-- ’Tis a thing--that is deuced pleasant, O! Oh a gentle heart Is the better part Of a lovely woman’s looks, O! And I totter on the brink Of love when I think, When I think, when I think of Miss B----, O! For a thousand girls Have hair that curls, And a sort of expressive face, O! But it isn’t the hair Nor the genteel air-- ’Tis the heart that looks bright and gives grace, O! Ay, lasses are many Without e’en a penny, But with hearts worth their weight in gold, O! Whom I’d sooner wed-- Yea, and sooner bed Than a princess rich, ugly, and old, O! No bee e’er sucked honey From gold or silver money, But he does from the lovely flower, O! Then give me a spouse Without fortune, land, or house, And her charming self for a dower, O! By Jove, I like that better than anything I’ve written for two years! I wrote it _con amore_ and _currente calamo_. ’Tis yours now, but by your leave I’ll copy it off, alter it a little and send it down as “a song” for _Harvardiana_, for which I protested I would write nothing O! Why, it’s good! It sings itself! I don’t think I shall alter anything but Miss B.’s name, for it ran off the end of my pen so that it must be better than I can make it. Why, I _like_ it, I do. There isn’t anything good in it either, except in the last passage. It has really put me in good spirits. Between Sunday and Wednesday I added about 250 lines to the “Poem.” It is not finished yet. I wish it were. The Class Poem, which he printed since he was not permitted to be present at his class celebration, when he would have read it, is a somewhat haphazard performance, as Lowell intimates in his letters. He says naïvely in one of the notes to the poem, of which there is a liberal supply in an appendix, that he suddenly discovered his subject after he had begun writing, by happening to refer in an off hand way to Kant. “Kant, happy name! change but the K to C, And I will wring my poem out of thee. Thanks, vast Immanuel! thy name has given The thing for which my brains so long have striven. * * * * * Cant be my theme, and when she fails my song, Her sister Humbug shall the lay prolong.”