We got to talking art one day, discussing in a general way <br />How some can match with brush and paint the glory of a tree, <br />And some in stone can catch the things of which the dreamy poet sings, <br />While others seem to have no way to tell the joys they see. <br /> <br />Old Blake had sat in silence there and let each one of us declare <br />Our notions of what's known as art, until he'd heard us through; <br />And then said he: 'It seems to me that any man, whoe'er he be, <br />Becomes an artist by the good he daily tries to do. <br /> <br />'He need not write the books men read to be an artist. No, indeed! <br />He need not work with paint and brush to show his love of art; <br />Who does a kindly deed to-day and helps another on his way, <br />Has painted beauty on a face and played the poet's part. <br /> <br />'Though some of us cannot express our inmost thoughts of loveliness, <br />We prove we love the beautiful by how we act and live; <br />The poet singing of a tree no greater poet is than he <br />Who finds it in his heart some care unto a tree to give. <br /> <br />'Though he who works in marble stone the name of artist here may own, <br />No less an artist is the man who guards his children well; <br />'Tis art to love the fine and true; by what we are and what we do <br />How much we love life's nobler things to all the world we tell.'<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-makes-an-artist/
