Lilliput Levee :: :: University of Virginia Library

“I clean the brushes, the colours I grind,
Prepare the palettes, the studio sweep;
When my master paints, I stand behind,
And I paint, myself, when he is asleep.

I study the trees, the houses, the men,
The rocks, the rivers, and skies so blue;
I am a painter's slave,—what then?
I mean to be a painter too!”

So thought the slave one busy day,
As nigh Velasquez' chair he stood;
The master said, as he turned that way,
“Juan, my colour-grinder good,

There was never, in all the land,
Such a servant, boy, as you,
Swift of thought and steady of hand,
Ready of will, and always true.”

II.

Time, incessant, rolled away,
For master and slave alike it rolled,
To-morrow glided into to-day,
And the new year soon became the old.

And Juan, who held his secret dear,
As a man with a will is apt to do,
Went with his master far and near,
And painted on, while no one knew.

Twice he went to Italy,
Growing in years, and wit, and skill,
And one day he said, “The King shall see,—
To-morrow, to-morrow, I think I will!

I will turn my picture, face to the wall,
That whosoever shall pass thereby,
Will say, ‘What may you this picture call,
Which stands so bashfully all awry?’”

III.

Philip the Fourth, King of Spain,
Came to the painter's studio,
Walked up the room and down again,
Seeing the pictures all of a row.

But, oh, what moments the slave endures
As King Philip turns his picture round;
“Velasquez mine, this is not yours?”—
Then down sank Juan, his knees on the ground,

And told his tale, till, wondering,
Philip said, “Painters should be free!”
And Juan kissed the hand of the King,
And rose, a freeman, from his knee.

IV.

Scholar now, a slave no more,
While his master lived, he stayed at his side,
Then served the daughter, a few years more,
Faithfully, kindly, till he died.

And this is the story, true as truth,
Of Juan, the colour-grinder brave,
Who kept, through a humble and toilsome youth,
A heart that controlled the lot of a slave!