and the only possible explanation is that the poems
are perfectly instinctive. There is no working
over as with an adult poet. Hilda is subconscious,
not self-conscious. Her mother says that she
rarely hesitates for a word. When the feeling is
strong, it speaks for itself. Read the dedication
poem, "For You, Mother." It is full of feeling,
and of that simple, dignified, adequate diction
which is the speech of feeling:

"I have found a way of thinking
To make you happy."

That is beautiful, and, once read, inevitable;
but it waited for a child to say. Poem after poem
is charged with this feeling, this expression of
great love:

"I will sing you a song,
Sweets-of-my-heart,
With love in it,
(How I love you!)"

"Will you love me to-morrow after next
As if I had a bird's way of singing?"

But it is not only the pulse of feeling in such
passages which makes them surprising; it is the
perfectly original expression of it. When one
reads a thing and voluntarily exclaims: "How