Hair is doubtless essential to poetic beauty, but the
poet's strength, unlike Samson's, emphatically does not reside in it.
"Broad Homeric brows," [Footnote: See Wordsworth, _On the Death of
James Hogg_; Browning, _Sordello_, _By the Fireside_; Mrs. Browning,
_Aurora Leigh_; Principal Shairp, _Balliol Scholars_; Alfred Noyes,
_Tales of the Mermeid Inn_.] poets invariably possess, but the less
phrenological aspect of their beauty is more stressed. The
differentiating mark of the singer's face is a certain luminous quality,
as of the soul shining through. Lamb noticed this peculiarity of
Coleridge, declaring, "His face when he repeats his verses hath its
ancient glory; an archangel a little damaged." [Footnote: E. V. Lucas,
_The Life of Charles Lamb_, Vol. I., p. 500.] Francis Thompson was
especially struck by this phenomenon. In lines _To a Poet Breaking
Silence_, he asserts,
Yes, in this silent interspace
God sets his poems in thy face,
and again, in _Her Portrait_, he muses,
How should I gage what beauty is her dole,
Who cannot see her countenance for her soul,
As birds see not the casement for the sky.
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