MANUSCRIPT: Bowles. Pencil. Envelope addressed by ED in ink: Samuel Bowles/Springfield/Mass. Postmark illegible.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 350; LL 347; L (1931) 338.

This note has generally been assigned to the autumn of 1883, at the time of Bowles's engagement. But ED had sent him one note, perhaps two, at that time (see letters no. 864 and 865). The idea of the poem is more fitting for a wedding than an engagement. The same lines are in the letter to Mrs. Holland (no. 805), written soon after Kate Holland's marriage.

The note may have accompanied a gift for the wedding which took place on 12 June.