Classic Poem

The Bismarck of the fine and lordly pose
Carries the dignity that Lenbach knows.
Such painting is not wrought to disappear
With short-lived, puerile " pictures of the year,"
As brushmen of the year so aptly class
Their Springtide produce that but blooms to pass.

The painters of a clean, artistic aim
Are alien to the yearly Salon game
Where journalists who cannot understand
Conceive the daub the Big Drum of the band.

Paint-quacks or " critics," call them what you will,
Their colour-blindness profits more than skill;
They know the value of conforming line,
And how, for Bottom's ears, the blossoms twine;
As that discreet and ever careful Child
Whose paint essays for Harper's are compiled;
Who sounds the brushman's praise in cat's-foot prose,
And has a fondness for official shows;
Who sees in Reinhart, of the fading " fame,"
" An artist irreproachable in aim":
And rates Frank Millet, of the stippled wile,
" The equal of Dutch masters in his style":
Who deems Childe Hassam " delicate and fine":
Babbles of Humphrey Moore's " exquisite line":
And terms Dannat " the hero of a class
" That few may equal, no one can surpass":
Who finds in Ridgway Knight " artistic truth,"
And calls, in contrast, Jean Millet " uncouth":
Who vaunts " the solemn calm" of Pearce's paint:
The Stewart " portraits" of the colour faint:
And dotes upon " a symphony by Gay,"
" The best work of its kind in airy gray".
Who cheers " the pious corpses" Weeks has shown —
The phrase is Child's, the thought his honest own —
While Mosler's " adequate," and Vail is " strong,"
And all, to Child, are " charming" in the throng.

Is Faith an invalid and Frankness dead,
And Truth by smirking Toleration led?
Believe it not till Ruskin reigns again —
That master of the unpictorial pen —
With all his crew from Child to Humphry Ward,
Praised of the " duffer," pitied of the Lord!