The girl’s flesh sang of beauty
As he stroked in once again
Hand and eye in harmony,
A landscape wet with rain.
Kindness filtered through
His brush: the gleam of a river
Lent quietude and flow,
The nature of the giver
Warmed the whole, and though
In later life a shade of grey
Pervaded his warm air,
His eye could still discover
Beauty everywhere.
He worked from grace to form,
From form to grace,
In atmosphere made firm
Where air met space –
A tree, a rock, a country road,
A bridge throwing light and shade,
Every detail flowed
In luminous serenity
From the whole. His brush
Bestowed transparency,
Nothing was clumsy;
The Georgics whispered in his ear
When he conferred
Reality on the pastoral scene
Like the song of a bird.
The clothier Delalain declared
He has no head for business;
Emile Zola had preferred
Sweating peasants in the fields
Where he set nymph and shepherd,
But Enough to do what you can,
Affirmed this simple man,
Creating from a wealth of lines,
Of hues and narrow semi-tones,
A world he would defend
Of grace without end:
The Prussians must not come,
He said, to Ville d’Avray!
The mixed his genius with dust,
With Pere Lachaise’s grey,
While they played Beethoven’s Andante
From the Symphony in A.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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