I'VE painted SHAKESPEARE all my life
"An infant"(even then at "play"!)
"A boy,"with stageambition rife,Then "Married to ANN HATHAWAY."
"The bard's first ticket night"(or "ben."),His "First appearance on the stage,"
His "Call before the curtain"then "Rejoicings when he came of age."
The bard playwriting in his room,The bard a humble lawyer's clerk.
The bard a lawyer (3)parson (4)groom (5)The bard deerstealing,after dark.
The bard a tradesman (6)and a Jew (7)
The bard a botanist (8)a beak (9)
The bard a skilled musician (10)too
A sheriff (11)and a surgeon (12)eke!
Yet critics say (a friendly stock)
That,though it's evident I try,Yet even I can barely mock The glimmer of his wondrous eye!
One morning as a work I framed,There passed a person,walking hard:
"My gracious goodness,"I exclaimed,"How very like my dear old bard!
"Oh,what a model he would make!"
I rushed outside impulsive me!
"Forgive the liberty I take,But you're so very""Stop!"said he.
"You needn't waste your breath or time,I know what you are going to say,
That you're an artist,and that I'm Remarkably like SHAKESPEARE.Eh?
"You wish that I would sit to you?"
I clasped him madly round the waist,And breathlessly replied,"I do!"
"All right,"said he,"but please make haste."
I led him by his hallowed sleeve,And worked away at him apace,I painted him till dewy eve,There never was a nobler face!
"Oh,sir,"I said,"a fortune grand Is yours,by dint of merest chance,To sport HIS brow at secondhand,To wear HIS castoff countenance!
"To rub HIS eyes whene'er they ache
To wear HIS baldness ere you're old
To clean HIS teeth when you awake
To blow HIS nose when you've a cold!"
His eyeballs glistened in his eyes
I sat and watched and smoked my pipe;
"Bravo!"I said,"I recognize The phrensy of your prototype!"
His scanty hair he wildly tore:
"That's right,"said I,"it shows your breed."
He danced he stamped he wildly swore
"Bless me,that's very fine indeed!"
"Sir,"said the grand Shakesperian boy (Continuing to blaze away),"You think my face a source of joy;That shows you know not what you say.
"Forgive these yells and cellarflaps:
I'm always thrown in some such state When on his face wellmeaning chaps This wretched man congratulate.
"For,oh!this face this pointed chin This nose this brow these eyeballs too,Have always been the origin Of all the woes I ever knew!
"If to the play my way I find,To see a grand Shakesperian piece,I have no rest,no ease of mind Until the author's puppets cease.
"Men nudge each other thus and say,'This certainly is SHAKESPEARE'S son,'And merry wags (of course in play)
Cry 'Author!'when the piece is done.
"In church the people stare at me,Their soul the sermon never binds;I catch them looking round to see,And thoughts of SHAKESPEARE fill their minds.
"And sculptors,fraught with cunning wile,Who find it difficult to crown A bust with BROWN'S insipid smile,Or TOMKINS'S unmannered frown,"Yet boldly make my face their own,When (oh,presumption!)they require To animate a pavingstone With SHAKESPEARE'S intellectual fire.
"At parties where young ladies gaze,And I attempt to speak my joy,'Hush,pray,'some lovely creature says,'The fond illusion don't destroy!'"Whene'er I speak,my soul is wrung With these or some such whisperings:
''Tis pity that a SHAKESPEARE'S tongue Should say such unShakesperian things!'
"I should not thus be criticised Had I a face of common wont:
Don't envy me now,be advised!"
And,now I think of it,I don't!
