Room 4: The Painter Chap

 He gives me such a bold and curious look,
That young American across the way,
As if he'd like to put me in a book
(Fancies himself a poet, so they say.
)
Ah well! He'll make no "document" of me.

I lock my door.
 Ha! ha! Now none shall see.
 .
 .
 .


Pictures, just pictures piled from roof to floor,
Each one a bit of me, a dream fulfilled,
A vision of the beauty I adore,
My own poor glimpse of glory, passion-thrilled .
 .
 .

But now my money's gone, I paint no more.


For three days past I have not tasted food;
The jeweled colors run .
 .
 .
 I reel, I faint;
They tell me that my pictures are no good,
Just crude and childish daubs, a waste of paint.

I burned to throw on canvas all I saw --
Twilight on water, tenderness of trees,
Wet sands at sunset and the smoking seas,
The peace of valleys and the mountain's awe:
Emotion swayed me at the thought of these.

I sought to paint ere I had learned to draw,
And that's the trouble.
 .
 .
 .

 Ah well! here am I,
Facing my failure after struggle long;
And there they are, my croutes that none will buy
(And doubtless they are right and I am wrong);
Well, when one's lost one's faith it's time to die.
 .
 .
 .


This knife will do .
 .
 .
 and now to slash and slash;
Rip them to ribands, rend them every one,
My dreams and visions -- tear and stab and gash,
So that their crudeness may be known to none;
Poor, miserable daubs! Ah! there, it's done.
 .
 .
 .


And now to close my little window tight.

Lo! in the dusking sky, serenely set,
The evening star is like a beacon bright.

And see! to keep her tender tryst with night
How Paris veils herself in violet.
 .
 .
 .


Oh, why does God create such men as I? --
All pride and passion and divine desire,
Raw, quivering nerve-stuff and devouring fire,
Foredoomed to failure though they try and try;
Abortive, blindly to destruction hurled;
Unfound, unfit to grapple with the world.
 .
 .
 .


And now to light my wheezy jet of gas;
Chink up the window-crannies and the door,
So that no single breath of air may pass;
So that I'm sealed air-tight from roof to floor.

There, there, that's done; and now there's nothing more.
 .
 .
 .


Look at the city's myriad lamps a-shine;
See, the calm moon is launching into space .
 .
 .

There will be darkness in these eyes of mine
Ere it can climb to shine upon my face.

Oh, it will find such peace upon my face! .
 .
 .


City of Beauty, I have loved you well,
A laugh or two I've had, but many a sigh;
I've run with you the scale from Heav'n to Hell.

Paris, I love you still .
 .
 .
 good-by, good-by.

Thus it all ends -- unhappily, alas!
It's time to sleep, and now .
 .
 .
 blow out the gas.
 .
 .
 .


Now there's that little midinette
Who goes to work each morning daily;
I choose to call her Blithe Babette,
Because she's always humming gaily;
And though the Goddess "Comme-il-faut"
May look on her with prim expression,
It's Pagan Paris where, you know,
The queen of virtues is Discretion.

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