The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill

A group of artists of the olden time
Met in a studio. One was gray and bent,
With beard like snow against his doublet black;
Three younger, one with glowing olive cheek,
One with a drowsy glitter in deep eyes,
One lean, and full of quick heat-lightning ways,—
You could not guess if he were old or young,
For his face hid the marks of other lives
Long gone, and so belied his stripling form.

Around were half-done pictures: eyes begun,
Gleams of white flesh from sombre shadows dim,
A velvet mantle tossed upon a stool,
A lute, a leaning rapier, vases tall,
And thro' thin, taper glasses glimmered wine.

Suddenly spake the restless one: “Enough
Of dabbled flowers, and bits of landscape bland;
Let us each paint the world as 't is to him.
Here are my pencils and my canvas,—come!”
Then from a curious cabinet he drew
A flask, vine-etched, and held it to the sun,
Till the gold was molten thro' it: “This to him
Whose sketch is best—but who shall be the judge?”

“That sweet slim maid who sat to you last week,”
Answered the graybeard, “and who comes to-day,
You said, with ducats for the finished work.”

So till the sunset's level pencil lay
Flame red on bust and antique furniture,
Their slender fingers dextrous went and came
'Twixt color and canvas; then they turned and saw.

Snowbeard had sketched a sullen close of day;
A flat and windy beach; a flying leaf
Whirled at haphazard over toward the foam.

And Drowsy-eyes had hung a pipe in air,
Broken mid-stem, whose tip was lost in cloud,
And from its bowl a bubble floated up,
Which was the earth, with land and mimic seas.

And Olive-cheek had made far overhead
A gorge of blue in the sky, with cliffs of cloud
Rounded, and white as salt, and in between
A headlong fallen angel plunging down.

But Restless-face most lovingly had drawn
The slim sweet maid who was to be their judge,
Looking with such unearthly deeps of eyes
Into your very soul, you dare not love—
You dare not even dream how fair they were,
Lest they should flash upon your dream with scorn.

And as they looked, lo! she herself had come.
Quietly then the others stole away,
With friendly mischief in their nod and smile,
Leaving those two alone. From silken mesh
She drew the broad gold pieces, that betrayed
Her trembling touch in tinklings musical.
But he: “I give you all the world I have,—
I ask but what is all the world to me.”
And answering not, with tender eyes cast down,
She left in his her little, warm, white hand.

University of Virginia Library

THE FOUR PICTURES