But poets should Exert a double vision; should have eyes To see near things as comprehensively As if afar they took their point of sight; And distant things as intimately deep As if they touched them.... I do distrust the poet who discerns No character or glory in his time. MRS. BROWNING.--_Aurora Leigh._ ... there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.--WALT WHITMAN, _Song of the Open Road_. The morning skies were all aflame.--L.C.M. Poetry with Mrs. Moulton was a serious art and an object of earnest pursuit. It was not for mere pastime that she had steeped herself, so to speak, in ... The old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through; The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silver phrase; for in her poetic work she recorded her deepest convictions and her most intimate perceptions of the facts of life. To her life was love; its essence was made up of the charm of noble and sincere friendships, of happy social intercourse, of sympathetic devotion. To this joy of love and friendship, there was in her mind opposed one sorrow--death, and not all the assurances of faith or philosophy could eliminate this dread, this all-pervading fear, that haunted her thoughts. In some way the sadness of death, as a parting, had been stamped on her impressionable nature, and it inevitably colored her outlook and made itself a controlling factor in her character. It took the form, however, of deepening her tenderness for every human relation and widening her charity for all human imperfection. The vision of Cold hands folded over a still heart, touched her as it did Whittier, with the pity of humanity's common sorrow, and with him she could have said that such vision Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave. Writing in later years of Stephen Phillips she said: "Is it not, after all, the comprehension of love that above all else makes a poet immortal? Who thinks of Petrarch without remembering Laura, of Dante without the vision of Beatrice?" "I have said that Phillips is the poet of love and of pity. Many poets have uttered the passionate cries of love; but few, indeed, are those who have seen and expressed the piteous tragedy of life as he has done. He says in 'Marpessa,' "The half of music, I have heard men say, Is to have grieved. And not only has Phillips grieved, but he has felt the grief of other men--listened to the wild, far wail which, one sometimes feels, must turn the very joy of heaven to sorrow." These words reveal much of her own nature. One critic said aptly: