File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 11, page 201, December 1859.jpg

Transcription:

Was robing my thoughts in his azure hue,

Making me discontented.

And so as a means that foe to appal,

On a spot on the mantel my eyes I let fall

Where a black oval frame* hangs down by the wall:

It worked like a charm dissolving my thrall

And served as a spell my thoughts to recall

From troubles purely invented

For the wide-world over, all others above

Some dozen or so are the faces I love;

A shade on whose brows, a light in whose eyes,

An arch of whose lips, whate’er it implies,

Whether smiles it betoken or anger it prove

This foolish old heart is as potent to move

As a touch the sea-amemone.

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* Containing a daguerreotype of the present Edwards’ family, I mean those by the living Mrs E. [Sarah Edwards] with the heads of it. Excellent portraits most of them. When the picture came home, a year or more ago (it was a surprise birthday present to which I was privy) [Jesse] Haney testified a good deal of natural gratification and was savage at Mrs [Catharine] Potter’s cackling inquisitiveness as to “Which was the one [Sally Edwards].” She pitched, I’m pretty sure, on Matty [Edwards], as the prettiest,