Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VAGABOND ARTIST, by SARAH SPENCER ROE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VAGABOND ARTIST, by                    
First Line: If I were an artist, I would paint the scenes
Last Line: To be again a wandering vagabond.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Colors; Paintings And Painters


If I were an artist, I would paint the scenes
I saw today. I'd leave the town behind,
And tramp the open fields—a vagabond,
With brush and canvas flung across my back.
And when I'd reached the noisy squirrel's haunts,
I'd find a fallen log, half sunk in leaves.
And there I'd sit among the woodsy smells
Of aged fungus, damp and rotting leaves,
And the musty scent of old and crumbling wood,
And paint a scene—a sumac, red as blood,
Which crouches low beneath a towering pine,
Or else the sweet-gum's leaves of deepest red
Whose starry shadows fall on the poplar tree.
I'd hear the thud of a nut on hardened earth,
And see, above, a squirrel with waving tail
In loud and angry chatter with a jay,
That flew too near his cache of winter food.
And these I'd paint among my leaves of red.

I'd paint the ground, so white with frost today—
Each little blade of wheat, an emerald
Which hides within a diamond, queerly shaped;
Each little wisp of grass, a wrinkled witch,
Imprisoned overnight in shining glass;
Each pasture field, a wealth of ostrich plumes.

I'd tramp across the meadow, field, and lane,
And listen to the crunch of frozen earth;
I'd climb a fence of stone, now touched by cold,
And stop to paint this view of quiet charm:
A brook which slowly makes a winding course
Beneath a row of tall and feathery elms.
Beyond the stream are aged knolls of brown,
And far in the distance stands a naked oak,
Which holds the ungrateful fish-hawk's bulky nest.

A flock of sheep are feeding on a knoll.
Their heads are low; they quietly eat the grass,
And move a little further up the slope.
I am too far away to hear them bite
And munch the blades. I could not paint the sound,
But I could paint the peace and silence there.

And when the early night stole quietly round,
I'd pack my bag with canvas, brush, and oils,
And tramp on home where I would long for days
To be again a wandering vagabond.





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