imagination takes a
firmer hold:

"The world turns softly
Not to spill its lakes and rivers.
The water is held in its arms
And the sky is held in the water."

School lessons, and a reflection in a pond--that is the stuff of which
all poetry is made. It is the fusion which shows the quality of
the poet. Turn to the text and read "Geography." Really, this is an
extraordinary child!

It is pleasant to watch her with the artist's eagerness intrigued by the
sounds of words, for instance:

"--silvery lonesome lapping of the long wave."

Again, enchanted by a little bell of rhyme, we have this amusing
catalogue:

"John-flowers,
Mary-flowers,
Polly-flowers
Cauli-flowers."

That is the conscious Hilda, the gay little girl, but it shows a
quick ear nevertheless. We can almost hear the giggle with which that
"Cauliflowers" came out. Usually rhyme does not appear to be a matter of
moment to her. Some poets think in rhyme, some do not; Hilda
evidently belongs to the second category. "Treasure," and "The
Apple-Jelly-Fish-Tree," and "Short Story" are the only poems in the
book which seem to follow a clearly rhymed pattern. If any misguided
schoolmistress had ever suggested that a poem should have rhyme and
metre, this book would never have been "told." In "Moon Doves," however,
there is a distinctly metrical effect without rhyme. But the great
majority of the poems are built upon cadence, and the subtlety of
this little girl's cadences are a delight to those who can hear them.
Doubtless her musical inheritance has all to do with this, for in poem
after poem the instinct for rhythm is unerring. So constantly is
this the case, that it is scarcely necessary to point out particular
examples. I may, however, name, as two of her best for other qualities
as well, "Gift," and "Poems." The latter contains two of her quick
strokes of observation and comparison: the morning "like the inside of a
snow-apple," and she herself curled "cushion-shaped" in the window-seat.

Dear me! How simple these poems seem when you read them done. But try to
write something new about a dandelion. Try it; and then read the poem of
that name here. It is charming; how did she think of it? How indeed!

Delightful conceits she has--another is "Sun Flowers"--but how comes a
child of eight to prick and point with the rapier of irony? For it is
nothing less than irony in "The Tower and the Falcon." Did she
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