Lines to a Lady with Green Eyes:

Shall I decline to whisper pleasant trifles

In that intriguing ear beneath your bob?

Admittedly the music rather stifles

Each new attempt with its symphonic sob.

Yet but a moment and the night is faded--

So much more dust in memory's muted heap.

And I'll have left you looking rather jaded

To pay my taxi driver and to sleep.

No reason then--or is there? Please, an answer.

Perhaps you'd like to Charleston, would you? Let's.

You're such a truly satisfying dancer--

And what are clever phrases? One forgets.

Shall I decline to whisper pleasant trifles

In that intriguing ear beneath your bob?

Admittedly the music rather stifles

Each new attempt with its symphonic sob.

Which is rather bad verse, English 16 to the contrary notwithstanding. And I have never seen a lady with green eyes, real green eyes. Of course I am not sufficiently pessimistic to say that I have never seen a lady. But with green eyes? No. I saw one with a green dress at the Pops though, last Saturday night. She was divine, if divine means inhuman. For really they don't make them in that model any more. I had just heard the Spring Song and was smoking a very good cigar, Corona Belvedere (adv.) and for a moment I forgot that Plato had very little regard for the less intellectual sex. But it was only a moment. I remembered Plato and munched a pretzel, remembered Epicurus and prayed for beer.

Yet this was all last week so perhaps I am growing old, living in the past. Today (which because of the discrepancies of journalism is yesterday) I was walking through the Square hunting a dentist who could save my bodily efficiency to the extent of permeating multifarious interstices with Old Gold (adv.) when I remarked a large crowd in the distance and became part of it immediately. What would draw a crowd on Harvard Square? Your answers must be written legibly and in English, I do not read the papers. Well this time it was a monkey and an Italian. The Italian had a classic profile, a grand air, and a hurdy-gurdy. The monkey had two tricks, a dirty hat, and a leash. No one slept at the lecture.

And this is not humor, it is truth. No matter what that anachronistic old bird of prey, the Ibis, may scream this is truth, real honest to Crime truth. I have no desire to be humorous when I see how little it takes to maintain such a tradition. Take the Silent Man at Washington. He is very humorous. But I would rather be tight than to be president. There is some excuse for being tight.

There is no excuse for being vulgar. A few weeks ago a communication was run on the same day that this column appeared. The communication concerned Harvard and a buggy ride. The reason it was run was obvious. Some journalist wanted to show that there are still barbarians in Cambridge. He evidently forgot that people read the CRIMSON before breakfast. And did you see the advertisement for the Dramatic Club play in the Lampoon--"Brown of Harvard is to be given five performances. Take your pick and come." I have an excellent axe.