d the loveliest, sublimest moral and emotional qualities,
together weave the web that clothes the world's great soul with
imperishable beauty. The possessor of highest intellectual capacity will
be also capable of highest developments in the latter qualities. The
woman of true intellect is the woman of truest affection. For the rest
let Lilith speak, whose life dropped unrecorded from the earliest world.
It is the poet's hope that the chords of the mother-heart universal will
respond to the song of the childless one. That in the survival of that
one word _lullaby_, may be revivified the pathetic figure of one whose
home, whose hope, whose Eden passed to another. Whose name living in the
terrors of superstitious peoples, now lingers in Earth's sweetest
utterance. That Pagan Lilith, re-baptized in the pure waters of maternal
love, shall breathe to heathen and Christian motherhood alike, that most
sacred love of Earth still throbbing through its tender lullaby.

A. L. C.

TO VALERIA.

Broideries and ancient stuffs that some queen
Wore; nor gems that warriors' hilts encrusted;
Nor fresh from heroes' brows the laurels green;
Nor bright sheaves by bards of eld entrusted
To earth's great granaries--I bring not these.
Only thin, scattered blades from harvests gleaned
Erewhile I plucked, may happen thee to please.
So poor indeed, those others had demeaned
Themselves to cull; or from their strong, firm hands
Down dropped about their feet with careless laugh,
Too broken for home gathering, these strands,
Or else more useless than the idle chaff.
But I have garnered them. Yet, lest they seem
Unworthy, and so shame Love's offering,
Amid the loose-bound sheaf stray flowers gleam.
And fairer seeming make the gift I bring,
Lilies blood-red, that lit the waving field,
And now are knotted through the golden grain.
Thou wilt not scorn the tribute I now yield,
Nor even deem the foolish flowers vain.
So take it, and if still too slight, too small
It seem, think 'tis a bloom that grew anear,
In other Springtime, the old garden wall.
(That pale blue flower you will remember, dear.
The heedless world, unseeing, passed it by,
And left it to the bee and you.) Then say,
"Because the hands that tended it are nigh