and most other poems on Milton follow this fancy.[Footnote: See John Hughes, _To the Memory of Milton_; William Lisle Bowles, _Milton in Age_; Bulwer Lytton, _Milton_; W. H. Burleigh, _The Lesson_; R. C. Robbins, _Milton_.] There is a good deal of verse on P. B. Marston, also, concurring with Rossetti's assertion that we may By the darkness of thine eyes discern How piercing was the light within thy soul. [Footnote: See Rossetti, _P. B. Marston_; Swinburne, _Transfiguration, Marston, Light_; Watts-Dunton, _A Grave by the Sea_.] Then, pre-eminently, verse on Homer is characterized by such an assertion as that of Keats, There is a triple sight in blindness keen. [Footnote: See Keats, _Sonnet on Homer_, Landor, _Homer, Laertes, Agatha_; Joyce Kilmer, _The Proud Poet, Vision_.] Though the conception is not found extensively in other types of verse, one finds an admirer apostrophizing Wordsworth, Thou that, when first my quickened ear Thy deeper harmonies might hear, I imaged to myself as old and blind, For so were Milton and Maeonides, [Footnote: Wm. W. Lord, _Wordsworth_ (1845).] and at least one American writer, Richard Gilder, ascribes blindness to his imaginary artists.[Footnote: See _The Blind Poet_, and _Lost_. See also Francis Carlin _Blind O'Cahan_ (1918.)] But the old, inescapable contradiction in aesthetic philosophy crops up here. The poet is concerned only with ideal beauty, yet the way to it, for him, must be through sensuous beauty. So, as opposed to the picture of the singer blind to his surroundings, we have the opposite picture--that of a singer with every sense visibly alert. At the very beginning of a narrative and descriptive poem, the reader can generally distinguish between the idealistic and the sensuous singer. The more spiritually minded poet is usually characterized as blond. The natural tendency to couple a pure complexion and immaculate thoughts is surely aided, here, by portraits of Shelley, and of Milton in his youth. The brunette poet, on the other hand, is perforce a member of the fleshly school. The two types are clearly differentiated in Bulwer Lytton's _Dispute of the Poets_. The spiritual one Lifted the azure light of earnest eyes, but his brother, The one with brighter hues and darker curls Clustering and purple as the fruit of the vine, Seemed like that Summer-Idol of rich life Whom sensuous Greece, inebriate with delight From orient myth and symbol-worship wrought. The decadents favor swarthy poets, and, in describing their features, seize upon the most expressive symbols of sensuality. Thus the hero of John Davidson's _Ballad in Blank Verse on the Making of a Poet_ is A youth whose sultry eyes Bold brow and wanton mouth were not all lust. But even the idealistic poet, if he be not one-sided, must have sensuous features, as Browning conceives him. We are told of Sordello,