PERFECTION.
(An Up-to-date Romance of Studio Life.)
Spaghetti, the prince of Futurists, stood
And gazed at his work with a thoughtful eye;
"It is good," he murmured, "yet not quite good,"
He had labelled it Midsummer Eve in a Wood,
But the gods knew why.
A lady's eyes and a calf-topped boot,
And a ticket (punched) for the Highgate Tube,
He had painted there, with some crimson fruit
And a couple of uptorn elms, each root
A perfect cube.
"It is better than all those beastly Dutch
And the old Italian frauds," he said;
"But the little something that means so much
Still waits;" and he gave an anguished clutch
At his mop-crowned head.
He went to the further side of the room
And flecked the canvas with daubs of mud;
He wiped it down with a housemaid's broom,
And gummed in the middle a jackdaw's plume
And a ha'penny stud.
He put on his motor-bicycling mask,
And prayed to his Muse; and whilst he prayed
(So Heaven is kind to those that ask)
Like a mænad flushed from the wine-god's flask,
Behold, a maid!
Her skirt was draggled, her hair was down,
As though she had walked by woodland tracks
Or come on an omnibus through the town,
And suddenly forth from her loosened gown
She pulled an axe.
And "Thus!" and "Thus!" she observed, and dealt
The painted fantasy blow on blow;
"Thou tyrannous man, thy doom is spelt!"
She gave it another frightful welt,
Then turned to go.
But the master, rolling upon the floor,
Leapt up to his feet like a mountain kid,
And "Swipe it," he said, "sweet maid, once more
Just here where the axe hit not before;"
And swipe she did.
He pressed his bosom, his eyes were wet,
He knelt and fawned at the damsel's feet;
"Be mine," he bellowed, "O Suffragette,
For the noblest work I have painted yet
Is now complete!"
Evoe.