Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HIS LAST PICTURE, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: The skies have grown troubled and Last Line: To where it wound into the skies. Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F. Subject(s): Art & Artists; Flowers; Paintings And Painters; Sky; Youth | ||||||||
THE skies have grown troubled and dreary; The clouds gather fold upon fold; The hand of the painter is weary And the pencil has dropped from its hold: The easel still leans in the grasses, And the palette beside on the lawn, But the rain o'er the sketch as it passes Weeps low -- for the artist is gone. The flowers whose fairy-like features Smiled up in his own as he wrought, And the leaves and the ferns were his teachers, And the tints of the sun what they taught; The low-swinging vines, and the mosses -- The shadow-filled boughs of the trees, And the blossomy spray as it tosses The song of the bird to the breeze. The silent white laugh of the lily He learned; and the smile of the rose Glowed back on his spirit until he Had mastered the blush as it glows; And his pencil has touched and caressed them, And kissed them, through breaths of perfume, To the canvas that yet shall have blessed them With years of unwithering bloom. Then come! -- Leave his palette and brushes And easel there, just as his hand Has left them, ere through the dark hushes Of death, to the shadowy land, He wended his way, happy-hearted As when, in his youth, his rapt eyes Swept the pathway of Fame where it started, To where it wound into the skies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BETWEEN THE WARS by ROBERT HASS THE GOLDEN SHOVEL by TERRANCE HAYES ALONG WITH YOUTH by ERNEST HEMINGWAY THE BLACK RIVIERA by MARK JARMAN A BOY'S MOTHER by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY |
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