[Poems by Lowell in] American Literature :: :: University of Virginia Library

Helping us when we're at a distance
To bore our friends with our existence,
As, bless them, now they're helping me,—
The most expressive far is E;
For more nice things with that begin
Than all the rest can pride them in:
E begins Beauty, Goodness, Grace;
E begins Changeful Charm of Face
E begins Talent, Tact, Goodsense,
Selfsacrifice without pretence;
E begins Wit halfsheathed in sweetness;
E begins Womanly Completeness;
Nay, E begins, as I could prove,
All that we most admire & love!

‘E begins this & that & tother,
Prithee, before you add another,
Permit me in your ear to say,
Sans gêne, that Ass begins with A.
Will you be good enough to tell
In what queer school you learned to spell?’

‘At a Dame's School I learned the art
Where all the tasks were got by heart;
She was herself my favourite book,
And taught whole folios in a look,
The text illuminated, too,
With art the Cloister never knew,
Pictures of Spain when Spain was queen,
With Moorish arabesques between.
I am an old man now, you know,
And this seems centuries ago,
Yet I would lay my life for wager
The years have not contrived to age her,
And that she stands as then she stood
In perfect poise of womanhood.
The dates may tell what fibs they will,
Look in her eyes, she's twenty still,—
Twenty! my memory fails; I mean
Just on the threshold of Eighteen!’

‘Granted: & yet I do not see’—
Why, Dance, her name was Emily

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Beginning that, E must include
All that is charming, all that's good.”