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 6]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, and 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.
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