PRETTY? Rather! Her teeth were like pearls, sir Peeping out between coralline bars; And her eyes, when she smiled on a fellow, Just twinkled like midnight cigars! She captured our whole delegation, -- A Trinity junior (a swell), Two cheeky sub-freshmen from Harvard, And a couple of sophs from Cornell. Well, we used to walk out in the evening To watch the moon's crescent arise; And some of us thought of the landscape, But the rest of us thought of her eyes. And when on the murmuring water The silvery light was aglow, It appeared like a vision of Eden (To the freshmen especially so!) Such is life! here, I'll show you the locket She gave me at parting; and Will Has a bangle of hers in his pocket, -- We keep them for memorabil'. As for me, though, I wasn't enraptured, In spite of the rose-tint and pearl, For somehow I'm never contented With only a tenth of a girl. And she's not very young, let me tell you, -- Ten years since they shipped her from school; And I don't think she'll ever get married, She can't find a big enough fool. Her name? Miss Van Arsdel, of Brooklyn. You met her, you say, in July? @3You're engaged to her, Tom?@1 Oh, the dickens! Beg par -- I -- well, hang it -- good-by! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEGY ON MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE by WILLIAM BASSE THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AND WHAT SHALL YOU SAY? by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR. THE RUSH OF THE OREGON by ARTHUR GUITERMAN IN TIME OF 'THE BREAKING OF NATIONS' by THOMAS HARDY |