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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IMPRESSION: 3, by AUSTIN PHILIPS
First Line: An artist manque. Of the finest, fine
Last Line: Friendliest, kindliest, manliest ... First in heart and mind.
Subject(s): Art & Artists
First Line: An artist manque. Of the finest, fine
Last Line: Friendliest, kindliest, manliest ... First in heart and mind.
Subject(s): Art & Artists
AN artist manqué. Of the finest, fine.
Handsome. Upstanding. Both ridiculous
And admirable. Touched with the divine
Spark, but foredoomed to daily, tedious
Tasks ... which he does with natural dignity.
Painter. Musician. Poet. All these three
Persons in this one man—potentially.
Gentle and strong. Staunch both of soul and will.
Pretending to regard with scorn and hate
God-given gifts which he has had to kill
Within himself ... in order to fulfil
Family duties, forced on him by Fate.
Dreaming of compositions never played,
Of songs unwritten, pictures un-portrayed.
In him the essential man essays to express
The inhibited artist through strange tricks of dress,
(Which make him, on the surface, seem a fop)
Or in smartening up the windows of his shop—
An ironmonger's—with staged scenes, that show
Something which has not ceased to gleam and glow ...
An instinct which, innate and uppermost,
Impels him to create at any cost ...
Such he whom, in this one-horse town, I find
Friendliest, kindliest, manliest ... first in heart and mind.
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