The Artist of the District School

I celebrate for genius cool
The Artist of the District School, 
Who improvises every tool.

His pencil is a dainty thing
From pussey's tail and biddy's wing,—
Fur married to a quill by string.

His crayons would delight the learned,—
A willow stick to carbon turned 
By free caloric,—namely, burned;

And nodules of calcareous silt
Whereof are Albion's sea-cliffs built,—
That's chalk to mark his mother's quilt.

Sketching with these in barn and hall 
What liberal frescoes grace the wall, 
Pre-Raphael, yea, pre-Adam, all!

Thin shafts — chaste, linear, severe —
Support an aldermanic sphere
Topped with a globe, and Man is here!

A something quadrupedal rears
A frantic tail, with horns or ears 
To witness where the head appears;

And genius, scorning false pretence, 
With honest text that supplements 
Ambiguous art, "A HORSE" presents.

And here a house so vaguely fronts 
The road, it shows both ends at once, 
With windows cross-eyed for the nonce.

There trees that are just clouds with stout 
Foot-stalks, and clouds but trees without, 
Shadow the landscape with fine doubt.

Such elephants as never drew
The half-price boy, he draws for you, 
In rarer shapes than Barnum knew.

Tigers (or striped zebras) leap
On acres of merino sheep
Three miles below in meadows deep.

But color is the artist's prize, 
On color most he glorifies,
Immortal only when he dyes!

With tastes that run to gorgeous scenes, 
In bankruptcy of slender means 
All juicy stains his palette gleans.

From clustered pigeon-berry's sap
Brief glories of magenta wrap
Whole continents upon his map.

The elder with a deeper red
Dyes all that sea where Pharaoh's dead
Sleep with him in their wet camp-bed.

Sealed with their yellow gum, the tips 
Of poplar buds, from whose bruised lips 
A waft of pungent odor slips,

Give gown and vest their orient hues, 
And over wood-cut skies diffuse
Warm glory, streaked with inky blues.

While the rich cranberry's crimson flow
Lays on the royal sunset's glow
To the broad heavens of indigo.

The berries of the briery field 
For robes imperial purple yield,
Rich scarlet roofs, and carts red-wheeled.

Green cows from purple puddles drink;
The farmer's barns are lovely pink,
From salivated carmine ink.

In Webster's painful Spelling Book
What charming landscapes tempt a-crook
The front-seat martyr's weary look.

The milkmaid in a yellow silk
Her red pail pouring sky-blue milk, 
Stands all forlornist of that ilk.

"An old man," blackberry dyed and bold,
"Tries," on a boy the blue boughs hold,
"What virtue is in stones" of gold!

A crimson fox, in waves pale red,
Declines the blood-red swallow’s aid
Against the flies’ green cloud o’erhead.

But all the room where Squire and drudge,
Frocked Honesty and gowned Fudge,
With “if and if” the ox case judge.

Is bathed in cranberry,—blushing awe
And reverence for impartial law
Whose rich and poor, one shade must draw.

Young Titian! Calmly work thy way;
These riper years give fairer play;
Thy genius shall have guides to-day!