A College Widow

Anonymous, in “Acta Columbiana”

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?

You’re engaged to her, Tom? Oh, the dickens!

Beg par— I—well, hang it—good-by!