That poem naturally comes first in a little study, because it is the most considerable in the collection, and again because it is the most characteristic. It is very convenient, too, for illustrating those theories of the preface, as for example, that the business of the poet is "the right appreciation of such facets of our own day as God will let us perceive ... the putting of certain realities in certain aspects ... the juxtaposition of varied and contrasting things ... the genuine love and the faithful rendering of the received impression." But on æsthetic grounds one is not so sure of "To All the Dead" for the first place. Perhaps it tries to include too many facets of life--or death; perhaps we get a slight impression as regards technique that the poet is _consciously_ experimenting; and there is a shade of morbidity haunting it. In many of the shorter pieces there is a nearer approach to perfection. "The Portrait," for instance, a symbolical picture of life, has only one flaw; a slight excess of a trick of repetition which is a weakness of our author. It is mere carping, however, to find fault with a piece which is so noble in idea and gracious in expression; and it seems a crime to spoil the lovely thing by mutilating it. But with a resemblance of theme, the poem is so strongly contrasted in manner with "To All the Dead" that one cannot resist quoting from it at this point. The idea, although great, is relatively simple: life, symbolized in the figure of a woman, seated upon a tomb in a sequestered graveyard. The mood is one of serene melancholy, not rising to passion or dropping to satire; and the gentle unity of thought and feeling leaves the mind free to receive the impression of beauty. She sits upon a tombstone in the shade; ..... Being life amid piled up remembrances Of the tranquil dead. ... So she sits and waits. And she rejoices us who pass her by, And she rejoices those who here lie still, And she makes glad the little wandering airs, And doth make glad the shaken beams of light That fall upon her forehead: all the world Moves round her, sitting on forgotten tombs And lighting in to-morrow.