Well, you see I read each day about the inquest--good! Dig out the truth, begin a system here Of making family records, let us see If we can do for people when we know How best to do it, what is done for stock. So build up Illinois, the nation too. I read about you daily. And last night When Elenor Murray's picture in the _Times_ Looked at me, I began to think, Good Lord, Where have I seen that face before? I thought Through more than fifty years departed, sent My mind through Europe and America In all my travels, meetings, episodes. I could not think. At last I opened up A box of pamphlets, photographs, mementos, Picked up since 1860, and behold I find this pamphlet of La Belle Menken. Here is your Elenor Murray born again, As here might be your blackbird of this year With spots of red upon his wings, the same As last year's blackbird, like a pansy springing Out of the April of this year, repeating The color, form of one you saw last year. Repeating and the same, but not the same; No two alike, you know. I'll come to that. Well, then, La Menken--as a boy in Paris I saw La Menken, I'll return to this. But just as Elenor Murray has her life Shadowed and symbolized by our Starved Rock-- And everyone has something in his life Which takes him, makes him, is the image too Of fate prefigured--La Menken has Mazeppa, Her notable first part as actress, emblem Of spirit, character, and of omen too Of years to come, the thrill of life, the end. Who is La Menken? Symbol of America, One phase of spirit! She was venturesome, Resourceful, daring, hopeful, confident, And as she wrote of self, a vagabond, A dweller in tents, a reveler, and a flame Aspiring but disreputable, coming up With leaves that shamed her stalk, could not be shed, But stuck out heavy veined and muddy hued In time of blossom. There are souls, you know, Who have shed shapeless immaturities, Betrayals of the seed before the blossom Comes to proclaim a beauty, a perfection; Or risen with their stalk, until such leaves Were hidden in the grass or soil--not she, Nor even your Elenor Murray, as I read her. But being America and American, Brings good and bad together, blossom and leaves With prodigal recklessness, in vital health And unselective taste and vision mixed Of beauty and of truth.