A Canvas For A Crust
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Aye, Montecelli, that's the name.
You may have heard of him perhaps.
Yet though he never savoured fame,
Of those impressionistic chaps,
Monet and Manet and Renoir
He was the avatar.
He festered in a Marseilles slum,
A starving genius, god-inspired.
You'd take him for a lousy bum,
Tho' poetry of paint he lyred,
In dreamy pastels each a gem: . . .
How people laughed at them!
He peddled paint from bar to bar;
From sordid rags a jewel shone,
A glow of joy and colour far
From filth of fortune woe-begone.
'Just twenty francs,' he shyly said,
'To take me drunk to bed.'
Of Van Gogh and Cezanne a peer;
In dreams of ecstasy enskied,
A genius and a pioneer,
Poor, paralysed and mad he died:
Yet by all who hold Beauty dear
May he be glorified!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 113 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF CGCGHH IEIJIJ |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 785 |
Words | 140 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
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"A Canvas For A Crust" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/31944/a-canvas-for-a-crust>.
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