[Her handwriting is very hard to decipher. Some questionable phrases in square brackets.]South Hadley, Massachusetts
March 5, 1909.
Dear Mr. Page:
Bret Harte's "Coyote" I like very much - as a Bret Harte poem. "To a Sea-Bird" seems to be less distinctive, but still interesting. The last few lines make a trite conclusion. [Man a small boy's living?] Also for "John Burns of Gettysburg." Is the "Golden Treasury" to admit nonsense - that is, if the nonsense is more than ordinary nonsense? "The Ballad of the Emeu" is delicious. "The Reveille" makes the shivers run up and down my neck and that [phrasing?] spelling, means Merrill is a fine poem. What a wicked, naughty, delightful thing is "The Willows," [...] Poe! I think parody a low form of humor and yet this - here I enjoy it. "On a Cone of the Big Tree[s]," comes home to me, perhaps partly because of my love for trees but I am sure Em-- more [knew?] the poem has in it the nobleness of the tree itself.
Have you ever thought how odd and [interesting?] it is that John Boyle O'Reilly, an ardent Roman Catholic, should have written so much in praise of the Puritans?
Up this way the [...] has sung for the first time last night.
Yours kindly,
Jeannette MarksEnclosure