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Sat. 22nd

Called on Miss Coit.

She charms one extremely. She happened to speak of gentians closed gentians in particular & said that they made her feel like writing poetry, that she always had an unwritten poem floating about in her mind.

I couldn't get over the idea of writing a poem when I got home. An audacity when I had never dreamed of before.

Sunday 23d Spent the greater part of the day in writing a reply to Mr. Stillmans article on the "discouragement of art."

Mr. Jenkins called while I was hot over it.

I showed him a scrap of a poem on the closed gentians. He

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repeated me one of his poems. He has an excellent ear for beauty in ryme & sound. Grace is his element in every direction.

To a closed gentian

Sweet flower, that ever keeps monastic vow
Apart from fringed eyed sisters, why dost thou
Heavenward lift thy head, though blind thou be?
What meditations are concealed in thee?

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What sixth and lonely sense, unknown to men,
Rivals perfection to thy inward kin
Keeping thy tiny spirit vision pure
That earthly blemishes could not endure.

What sighing wind did warn thee not to look
Upon the withering leaf dropped in the brook,