Poetry Archives

In youth I longed to paint
     The loveliness I saw;
And yet by dire constraint
     I had to study Law.
But now all that is past,
     And I have no regret,
For I am free at last
          Law to forget.

To beauty newly born
     With brush and tube I play;
And though my daubs you scorn,
     I’ll learn to paint some day.
When I am eighty old,
     Maybe I’ll better them,
And you may yet behold
          A gem.

Old Renoir used to paint,
     Brush strapped to palsied hand;
His fervour of a saint
     How I can understand.
My joy is my reward,
     And though you gently smile,
Grant me to fumble, Lord,
          A little while!