THE PAINTER PUZZLED.
“Draw, Sir!”—Old Play.
ELL, something must be done for May,
The time is drawing nigh,
To figure in the catalogue
And woo the public eye.
Something I must invent and paint;
But, oh! my wit is not
Like one of those kind substantives
The answer Who and What?
Oh, for some happy hit! to throw
The gazer in a trance;
But posé là—there I am posed,
As people say in France.
In vain I sit and strive to think,
I find my head, alack!
Painfully empty, still, just like
A bottle “on the rack.”
In vain I task my barren brain
Some new idea to catch,
And tease my hair—ideas are shy
Of “coming to the scratch.”
In vain I stare upon the air,
No mental visions dawn;
A blank my canvas still remains,
And worse—a blank undrawn: