Poems (Forrest)/The street artist

by Mabel Forrest

THE STREET ARTIST

He leaned, with all his wares unsold, against the city wall,
 Weary and grey, the architect of this strange gallery
Of seascapes and of landscapes that were not of earth at all—
 A parody of forests and a skit upon the sea.

Some quickness with the pencil and some ardour for the brush,
 Perhaps began his downfall and his hope of a career.
And I thought of brown bees humming in an almond-scented hush,
 And I breathed a whiff of woodland—though he reeked of last night's beer.

And I thought of tumbling oceans and of pale mists delicate,
 And of dewy plains at dawning and of black soil freshly ploughed;
And I wondered why his hand must knock, unheeded, on the gate
 Of the visionings of hill-sides and the marvel of a cloud.

The tan sand in a breaking wave, the curl of creamy foam,
 The glimmer of wet beaches and the moonshine on the reeds,
A swaying of green seaweeds where Pacific breakers comb,
 Or the long, slow, sunlit reaches where the lonely heron feeds.

His sunsets were like beefsteak when it's badly underdone;
 In his penance sheets of moonlight warm Romance when staggering, faint:
There was war and there was rapine in the carnage of his sun,
 So I turned and gave him sixpence for the things he couldn't paint!