MANUSCRIPT: destroyed. The text of Letters (1931), where the letter but not the poem is published, is followed here. The poem follows the AC autograph, as published in Poems (1955) 810.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 259-260; LL 271-272, in part; L (1931) 238- 239. In all three the poem is omitted, but in both editions of L it is indicated as being part of the letter.

In the early spring of 1870 the Norcross sisters went to Milwaukee to be with their cousing Eliza Dudley, now an invalid. The Hollands returned from their trip to Europe in May. Ther person identified as C[lara] is probably Clara Newman Turner, who married Sidney Turner of Norwich, Connecticut, 14 October 1869. Mrs. Luke Sweetser was a rotund lady whose interest in fashions was locally recognized. (See letter no. 389.) The paraphrase in the last sentence is from Macbeth, I, iv, 7-8: "Nothing in his life/Became him like the leaving it. . ."