GEO. BURNET.
PRESIDENT.
EMORY S. FOSTER,
SECRETARY.
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OF THE
BOARD OF PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.
ST. LOUIS,
May 30 1890
Dear Sir:
Your brother, and my friend, Mr Thomas J. Whitman, on
reading the accompanying lines, thought you would not be annoyed if I should
send them to you. So I send them. You will at once recognize your own thought,
somewhat differently expressed.
Yours faithfully
Emory S. Foster
To Walt Whitman
The Poet.
Come, said The Soul,
Such verses now, my body, let us write—write thou for me—
That when I come again, re-clothed in human form,
And walk in youth upon the earth,
The writing I shall find in treasured volumes,
[Records of man's best hopes, loves, aspirations, faiths],
And reading with new eyes, may add thereto.
Ever and ever thus shall youth returning, revise old age, till truth
Alone, shine on the written page, and move all hearts.
If not delivered return to E. S. Foster. St. Louis, MO.