Read it through once

His next step must be a letter to Tamakatsura herself. He remembered Suyetsumu’s extreme incapacity in this direction, and feared that Tamakatsura, after her strange upbringing, might prove to be a hundred times more hesitating and inefficient. It was therefore in order to know the worst as soon as possible that he now lost no time in addressing her. His letter was full of the friendliest assurances; in the margin was written the poem: ‘It shows not from afar; but seek and you shall find it, the marsh-flower of the Island. For from the ancient stem new shoots for ever spring.’