The Janitor's Boy, and Other Poems

by Nathalia Crane

THE HISTORY OF PAINTING

A shadow and reflection quarelled once upon a time,

Disputing o’er the setting for a woodland pantomime.

One claimed that color dominates and waved to heaven’s blue;

The other held that outline makes an angel worth the view.

The tumult shook the thrushes’ nests, the fledglings joined their cries;

Forth came the fauns from forest gloom with wistful enterprise.

Reflection flung her florid robes o’er gneiss and dolomite;

The shadow bowed to everything that stood within the light.

But color lacked the candor and the certainty divine;