Hebrews, a female
spectre in the shape of a finely dressed woman, who lies in wait
for, and kills children. The old Rabbins turned Lilith into a
wife of Adam, on whom he begat demons and who still has power to
lie with men and kill children who are not protected by amulets
with which the Jews of a yet later period supply themselves as a
protection against her. Burton in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_
tells us: "The Talmudists say that Adam had a wife called Lilis,
before he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils."
A commentator on Skinner, quoted in the _Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana_, says that the English word _Lullaby_ is derived
from Lilla, abi (begone, Lilith)! In the demonology of the
Middle Ages, Lilis was a famous witch, and is introduced as such
in the Walpurgis night scene in Goethe's "Faust."--_Webster's
Dictionary._

Our word _Lullaby_ is derived from two Arabic words which mean
"Beware of Lilith!"--_Anon._

Lilith, the supposed wife of Adam, after she married Eblis, is
said to have ruled over the city of Damascus.--_Legends of the
Patriarchs and Prophets.--Baring Gould._

From these few and meagre details of a fabled existence, which are all
that the author has been able to collect from any source whatever, has
sprung the following poem. The poet feels quite justified in dissenting
from the statements made in the preceding extracts, and has not drawn
Lilith as there represented--the bloodthirsty sovereign who ruled
Damascus, the betrayer of men, the murderer of children. The Lilith of
the poem is transferred to the more beautiful shadow-world. To that
country which is the abode of poets themselves. And about her is wrapt
the humanizing element still, and everywhere embodied in the sweetest
word the human tongue can utter--_lullaby_. Some critics declare that
true literary art inculcates a lofty lesson--has a high moral purpose.
If poets and their work must fall under this rigorous rule, then alas
"Lilith" will knock at the door of public opinion with a trembling hand
indeed. If the poem have either moral aim or lesson of any kind (which
observe, gentle critic, it is by no means asserted that it has), it is
simply to show that the strongest intellectual powers contain no
elements adverse to the highest and purest exercise of the affectional
nature. That, in its true condition, the noblest, the most cultured
intellect, an