Oh Happy Time! - Art'S Early Days! When O'Er Each Deed, With Sweet Self-Praise, Narcissus-Like I Hung! When Great Rembrandt But Little Seemed, And Such Old Masters All Were Deemed As Nothing To The Young! Some Scratchy Strokes - Abrupt And Few, So Easily And Swift I Drew, Sufficed For My Design; My Sketchy, Superficial Hand Drew Solids At A Dash - And Spanned A Surface With A Line. Not Long My Eye Was Thus Content, But Grew More Critical - My Bent Essayed A Higher Walk; I Copied Leaden Eyes In Lead - Rheumatic Hands In White And Red, And Gouty Feet - In Chalk. Anon My Studious Art For Days Kept Making Faces - Happy Phrase, For Faces Such As Mine! Accomplished In The Details Then, I Left The Minor Parts Of Men, And Drew The Form Divine. Old Gods And Heroes - Trojan - Greek, Figures - Long After The Antique, Great Ajax Justly Feared; Hectors, Of Whom At Night I Dreamt, And Nestor, Fringed Enough To Tempt Bird-Nesters To His Beard. A Bacchus, Leering On A Bowl, A Pallas That Out-Stared Her Owl, A Vulcan - Very Lame; A Dian Stuck About With Stars, With My Right Hand I Murdered Mars - (One Williams Did The Same). But Tired Of This Dry Work At Last, Crayon And Chalk Aside I Cast, And Gave My Brush A Drink! Dipping - "As When A Painter Dips In Gloom Of Earthquake And Eclipse," - That Is - In Indian Ink. Oh Then, What Black Mont Blancs Arose, Crested With Soot, And Not With Snows: What Clouds Of Dingy Hue! In Spite Of What The Bard Has Penned, I Fear The Distance Did Not "Lend Enchantment To The View." Not Radcliffe'S Brush Did E'Er Design Black Forests Half So Black As Mine, Or Lakes So Like A Pall; The Chinese Cake Dispersed A Ray Of Darkness, Like The Light Of Day And Martin Over All. Yet Urchin Pride Sustained Me Still, I Gazed On All With Right Good Will, And Spread The Dingy Tint; "No Holy Luke Helped Me To Paint, The Devil Surely, Not A Saint, Had Any Finger In'T!" But Colors Came! - Like Morning Light, With Gorgeous Hues, Displacing Night, Or Spring'S Enlivened Scene: At Once The Sable Shades Withdrew; My Skies Got Very, Very Blue; My Trees Extremely Green. And Washed By My Cosmetic Brush, How Beauty'S Cheek Began To Blush; With Lock Of Auburn Stain - (Not Goldsmith'S Auburn) - Nut-Brown Hair, That Made Her Loveliest Of The Fair; Not "Loveliest Of The Plain!" Her Lips Were Of Vermilion Hue: Love In Her Eyes, And Prussian Blue, Set All My Heart In Flame! A Young Pygmalion, I Adored The Maids I Made - But Time Was Stored With Evil - And It Came! Perspective Dawned - And Soon I Saw My Houses Stand Against Its Law; And "Keeping" All Unkept! My Beauties Were No Longer Things For Love And Fond Imaginings; But Horrors To Be Wept! Ah! Why Did Knowledge Ope My Eyes? Why Did I Get More Artist Wise? It Only Serves To Hint, What Grave Defects And Wants Are Mine; That I'm No Hilton In Design - In Nature No De Wint! Thrice Happy Time! - Art'S Early Days! When O'Er Each Deed, With Sweet Self-Praise, Narcissus-Like I Hung! When Great Rembrandt But Little Seemed, And Such Old Masters All Were Deemed As Nothing To The Young!