Classic Poem

FRENCH COLOUR

I sing of those who roam the happy fields
To paint the lyrics Lady Nature yields;
Of those for whom she chants her primal strain,
Weird, witching undertones of joy and pain;
That silent symphony the master heeds,
The colour music of the skies and meads.

Here is no closet-message to declare,
The lore is lacking but the love is fair.
Stern Wisdom never warms me with her smile,
'T is winsome Folly lures me all the while.
I worship Beauty with her, hand in hand,
And, as the worldlings labour in the land,
Bent with the woes of wealth and high repute,
We stray apart and pluck the better fruit.

So we are happy, with strange gladness warm,
In summer sorceries and wintry storm;
When airs are vernal, and when winds blow cold,
When Hope lies bleeding, and when Want is bold.
We laugh at luck and bite our thumbs at Fate,
And while away the hours with fond debate;
Rich, in the spirit, careless of the bays,
We bid a jest atone for lack of praise.

We envy no one, feel no trader's goad,
For long ago we took the open road;
The road that laughing Folly never shuns,
Pressed by the naked feet of all her sons.
King Demos spurns it as a barren ground,
For creature comforts are not scattered round.
He cannot brook its lack of tinsel shows.
'T is not a crowded road, as Demos knows;
For Monsieur Worldly-Wise will never care
To tread its slopes and breathe its ample air.
We love it tho', we of the picture sense,
Myself and Folly, doomed to give offence;
We bare our backs to every pickled rod,
And dance upon the pruning knives, unshod.

And so, when worldlings hear me say or sing
That Wit is dead and Wisdom on the wing,
They know it 's but an idle rhymer's chant,
Who never could learn prudence of the ant;
Who wastes his day, and bids the World wag by,
And boggles where the wise would edify;
Who has no " moral" lesson to unwind
To vex the good or soothe the sinful mind.

When I essay to sing a painter's praise,
Know that I 'm laughing at his guileless ways,
To think the man is such an arrant fool
As to respect a sane artistic rule,
Or hope the World-will like a work of style,
Or yet that worth may amateurs beguile.

Insult and scorn for him who cares to be
From smirking cant and cheap imposture free;
The rude reproof, the cynic's awful frown,
The careless censure of the gibing Town.
When I accord a bungler gentle blame,
And say his work is usual and tame;
And pretty adjectives impair my song,
And satire seems to wax a trifle strong;
Know that, in sooth, I 'm merry at the joke,
Intent with words unstinted praise to cloak;
But lost in admiration of the man
Who always tries to do the worst he can.
Reverse my lack-wit fancy every time,
And when I 'm serious, pardon me the crime.

All praise to him who can the Public gull,
Whose forte it is for ever to be dull;
His home is fixed in mansions of the blest
Where well-fed " fakirs" sink to sainted rest,
Where wealth and honour line his peaceful path —
There waits for him no woful aftermath,
The aftermath foreboding Genius fears
When slain Ideals haunt the sunset years.

While Wisdom's clever daughters would refrain
From causing any brushman futile pain,
The sons of Folly, with misguided zeal,
May " break a butterfly upon the wheel";
For unofficial rhymers will not down,
Or cease from troubling here in Paris Town,
While painters from the corners of the earth,
Some sired of talent, some of little worth,
Crowd for the prizes of official art —
The Ribbons and the Medals of the mart.

They cluster like the lackeys of a court —
Not artist-painters but the other sort —
And here 't were fitting in a weary way
To note the trend of competition's play;
How far the artisans of paint abound,
How far the artists, by a stroll around
The rival Salons where the paintings throng
In serried rows, imposture to prolong.
I 'll play the preacher, and for pious ends
Damn all my enemies and praise my friends.