In celebration of the day he came
Into the world, his father grudging spent
Some coin against a brush and gave the same
For colors six of paint, his first-born's prize
The hour his thirteenth birthday did arrive
He painted every thing beneath his eyes
But most of all he loved a certain tree
A soaring thing of prideful leaves and stems
And nests of hornets, thickly twisting arms,
The wooden arms such as he could not number
Spoke mother's whisper chiding summer's thunder
Newspapers fell to brush and stroke and color
For years he had no dearer friend than these
He knew no worship but his tree of trees
The ever moving, ever righteous wonder!
The autumn scraps of vellum glowing umber
In sunset blush with reminiscing cry!
He lived the lean and poorer of his years
And dreamed of how he would a day now hear
His name pronounced with ardor by his love,
The singing of the grandson he had fathered,
His paintings with encomium applauded
By, aye, the most reluctant of the band
Of critics sighing as they dreamly stand
Before his fair depiction of a dove.
The dove that rests on branches coming still
Upon the moment that the storm is gone
Such lightning left the forest flaming
And drenched the ground did forty lives of raining
The dovesong mourns the silent embers waning
But sings the tree of trees still standing on!
(Johann žemė)