"Poetry!" she said. "Is it something that you have written?"
He smiled. "I have merely copied it. I saw the poem for the first time
an hour or so ago at Mr. Audubon's. It is new and has never been
printed. It was written by the young English poet, John Keats, to his
brother George Keats, who is a partner of Mr. Audubon in the mill on the
river. Mr. Keats and his wife are here now, the guests of Mr. Audubon.
The poem came in a letter which has just been received. I have copied a
part of it, and a few words from the letter, also. Mr. George Keats was
kind enough to allow me, and I thought you would like to see them. I
hadn't time to copy the entire poem, though it isn't very long."
"It was very kind," said Ruth. "I am so glad to see it. May I read it
now? This is what the letter says," reading it aloud, so that David also
might hear. "If I had a prayer to make for any great good ... it should
be that one of your children should be the first American poet?"
"The first English hand across the sea!" said Paul Colbert.
Ruth read on from this letter of John Keats to his brother: "I have a
mind to make a prophecy.
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