Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Letter

Helen Hoyt

THE WORDS were beautiful,

Before I had read them.

I laid my fingers along the edges,

Over the fold your hands had folded—

I laid my face to the face of my letter.

Softly came down and closed in about me

A solitude,

A separate world;

In which was no sound or motion or being,

Only the whispering of the paper

Stirring to life in my brain.

All day I carried it

Against me,

Like a bird;

Against my heart where my life is,

Like a secret waiting in my heart,

Singing.