Falling so slowly Down from above, So white, hushed and holy, Folding the city Like the great pity Of God in his love; Sent down out of heaven, On its sorrow and crime, Blotting them, folding them Under its rime. Beautiful as an original image is the thought of the snow descending hushed and holy, ‘like the great pity of God in his love,’ but it is a sentimental obtrusion, out of character with the snow-picture as such. We find Campbell frequently creating the most engaging Nature pictures, and here or there in a poem recalling the eye from the pure visual delights to let the moral imagination reflect on some suggestion, some similitude, for ‘the inward soul.’ What a pretty pastel, for instance, he paints with spare use of mere tints, in the first two stanzas of _In the Study_:— Out over my study, All ashen and ruddy Sinks the December sun, And high up over The chimney’s soot cover The winter night has begun. Here in the red embers I dream old Decembers, Until the low moan of the blast, Like a voice out of Ghost-land, Or memory’s lost-land, Seems to conjure up wraiths from the past. But Campbell does not continue the strict painting of the objective picture. He introduces something ‘for the inward soul,’ as he does, in the concluding stanza:— Then into the room Through the firelight and gloom, Some one steals,—let the night wind grow bleak, And ever so coldly,— Two white arms enfold me, And a sweet face is close to my cheek. This is not a fault in Campbell’s poetry. It is an essential part of his art. As in Longfellow, so in Campbell the _humanized substance_ of his verse is consciously designed for the popular heart, and ensures popular acceptance. Campbell would rather do this than to write always for art’s sake, as in these sheer pictorial stanzas from _A Winter’s Night_:— Shadowy white, Over the fields are the sleeping fences, Silent and still in the fading light, As the wintry night commences. • • • • _Calm sleeping night_ _Whose jewelled couch reflects the million stars_ That murmur silent music in their flight. . . . Yet, he can employ delineative line with swift and sure artistry just to make a picture for its own sake, disclosing absolute mastery in economy of means, as in his _Rododactulos_:— The night blows outward in a mist, And all the world the sun has kissed. Along a golden rim of sky, A thousand snow-piled vapors lie. And by the wood and mist-clad stream, _The Maiden Morn stands still to dream_.