Oh, the wretched man's despair!

           Was it lost beyond repair?

           Swift he bore it from below,

           Hastened to the studio,

           Where with anxious eyes he studied

           If the ruin, blotched and muddied,

           Could by any human skill

           Be made a normal picture still.

           Thus in most repentant mood

           Unhappy Peter Wilson stood,

           When, with pompous face, self-centred,

           Willoughby the critic entered —

           He of whom it has been said

           He lives a century ahead —

           And sees with his prophetic eye

           The forms which Time will justify,

           A fact which surely must abate

           All longing to reincarnate.

           "Ah, Wilson," said the famous man,

           Turning himself the walls to scan,

           "The same old style of thing I trace,

           Workmanlike but commonplace.

           Believe me, sir, the work that lives

           Must furnish more than Nature gives.

           'The light that never was,' you know,

           That is your mark – but here,   hullo!

           What's this? What's this? Magnificent!

           I've wronged you, Wilson! I repent!

           A masterpiece! A perfect thing!

           What atmosphere! What colouring!

           Spanish Armada, is it not?

           A view of Ryde, no matter what,

           I pledge my critical renown

           That this will be the talk of Town.

           Where did you get those daring hues,

           Those blues on reds, those reds on

              blues?

           That pea-green face, that gamboge sky?

           You've far outcried the latest cry —

           Out Monet-ed Monet.   I have said

           Our Art was sleeping, but not dead.

           Long have we waited for the Star,

           I watched the skies for it afar,

           The hour has come – and here you are."

           And that is how our artist friend

           Found his struggles at an end,

           And from his little Chelsea flat

           Became the Park Lane plutocrat.

           'Neath his sheltered garden wall

           When the rain begins to fall,

           And the stormy winds do blow,

           You may see them in a row,

           Red effects and lake and yellow

           Getting nicely blurred and mellow.

           With the subtle gauzy mist

           Of the great Impressionist.

           Ask him how he chanced to find

           How to leave the French behind,

           And he answers quick and smart,

           "English climate's best for Art."