uite grasp its meaning herself? We may doubt it. In this poem, the
subconscious is very much on the job.

To my thinking, the most successful poems in the book--and now I mean
successful from a grown-up standpoint--are "For You, Mother," "Red
Rooster," "Gift," "Poems," "Dandelion," "Butterfly," "Weather," "Hills,"
and "Geography." And it will be noticed that these are precisely the
poems which must have sprung from actual experience. They are not the
book poems, not even the fairy poems, they are the records of reactions
from actual happenings. I have not a doubt that Hilda prefers her
fairy-stories. They are the conscious play of her imagination, it must
be "fun" to make them. Ah, but it is the unconscious with which we are
most concerned, those very poems which are probably to her the least
interesting are the ones which most certainly reveal the fulness of
poetry from which she draws. She probably hardly thought at all, so
natural was it, to say that three pinks "smell like more of them in a
blue vase," but the expression fills the air with so strong a scent that
no superlative could increase it.

"Gift" is a lovely poem, it has feeling, expression, originality,
cadence. If a child can write such a poem at eight years old, what does
it mean? That depends, I think, on how long the instructors of youth
can be persuaded to keep "hands off." A period of imitation is, I fear,
inevitable, but if consciousness is not induced by direct criticism, if
instruction in the art of writing is abjured, the imitative period will
probably be got through without undue loss. I think there is too much
native sense of beauty and proportion here to be entirely killed even by
the drying and freezing process which goes by the name of education.

What this book chiefly shows is high promise; but it also has its pages
of real achievement, and that of so high an order it may well set us
pondering. AMY LOWELL.

CONTENTS

FOUR TO FIVE YEARS OLD

FIRST SONGS

FIVE TO SIX YEARS OLD

GARDEN OF THE WORLD
THEATRE-SONG
VELVETS
TWO SONGS
MOON SONG
SUNSET
MOUSE
SHORT STORY
BY LAKE CHAMPLAIN
SPRING SONG
WATER
SHADY BRONN
CHICKADEE
THE CHAMPLAIN SANDMAN
ROSE-MOSS
ABOUT MY DREAMS

SIX TO SEVEN YEARS OLD

AUTUMN SONG
THE DREAM
BUTTERFLY
EVENING
THUNDER SHOWER
RED CROSS SONG