It is obnoxious in Alexander Smith's portrait of his hero,

A lovely youth,
With dainty cheeks, and ringlets like a girl's.
[Footnote: _A Life Drama_.]

And in poorer verse it is unquotable. [Footnote: See Henry Timrod, _A
Vision of Poesy_ (1898); Frances Fuller, _To Edith May_ (1851);
Metta Fuller, _Lines to a Poetess_ (1851).] Someone has pointed out
that decadent poetry is always distinguished by over-insistence upon the
heroine's hair, and surely sentimental verse on poets is marked by the
same defect. 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,