Wednesday. 
Dearest Mamie, 
        The thermometer is above ninety to day and it is unspeakably hard to do anything except to swim in the swimming tank. I am still working at my special topic which is due on Friday. I haven’t written a word of it yet but I have to get it all thought out first. In connection with it I have been reading Rossetti’s poetry




and remembering to have heard you say you had not read “The Woodspurge,” I have copied it, and send it to you. I think it is exquisite, as are several others of his poems, but he is very uneven. He reminds me of Alice Woods. Do you remember that queer picture of hers of the Japanese Adam and Eve of which Miss Robinson so disapproved?


        Well, Rossetti has the same sort of odd fantastic conception of things -- for instance his poem Eden bower. 
        I’m sorry you felt squelched by my refusal to write about the Vassar Wellesley debate, but you must see that I simply couldn’t do it. Congratulate cousin Juliet for me -- I’ll write to aunt Lide myself if I ever get any time. 
        Il me faut comune with Langland now for a while so farewell
Slews of love
Peg


The Woodspurge
The wind flapped loose, the wind was still, 
Shaken out dead from the tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind’s will, --
I sat now, for the wind was still. 


Between my knees my forehead was, --
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass, 
My naked ears heard the day pass. 


My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun, 
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one. 


From perfect grief there need not be 
Wisdom or even a memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me, --
The woodspurge has a cup of three. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 




Hot 
Rossetti
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. MAY 20 5PM 1903
Miss May Louise Shipp
1010 N Delaware St
Indianapolis
Indiana


INDIANAPOLIS, IND. MAY 21 1130PM 1903