In stilly grove beside the sea <br />He mingles colours, measures space; <br />A bronze and breezy man is he, <br /> Yet peace is in his face. <br />Behold him stand and longly stare, <br />Till deft of hand and deep of eye <br />He captures on a canvas square <br /> The joy of earth and sky. <br /> <br />Aloof from servitude and strife, <br />From carking care and greed apart, <br />Beneath the blue he lives his life <br /> Of Nature and of Art. <br />He grieves his pictures must be sold, <br />Aye, even when his funds are low, <br />And fat men pay a purse of gold <br /> He sighs to see them go. <br /> <br />My loving toil is of the pen, <br />Yet while my verse is not unread, <br />His pictures will be living when <br /> My tropes are dim and dead. <br />God gives us talents great and small, <br />And though my rhymes I'll never rue, <br />Sometimes I wish that after all <br /> I were a dauber too.<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dauber/
