  BETSEY, when all the stalwarts left Us women to our tasks befitting, Your little fingers, far from deft, Coped for an arduous week with knitting; And, though the meekness of your hair Drooped o'er the task disarmed my strictures, The Army gained when in despair You dropped its socks to paint it pictures. I, knowing well your guileless brush, Urged that there wanted something subtler To put Meissonier to the blush And snatch the bays from Lady Butler; And so your skies retained their blue, Nor reddened with the wrath of nations, To prove at least one artist knew Her public and her limitations. A dozen warriors far away Craved of your skill to keep them posted, With coloured pictures day by day, In aught of note their birthplace boasted; Hence these "Arriving Refugees" (Cheerful in burnt sienna) hurry To soothe your uncle's hours of ease In some congested hut in Surrey. I hear that Nurse's David gets (His valour is already French's) Your "Market" with the cigarettes His sister forwards to the trenches; This "Cat" (for Rupert in the East), Limned in its moments of inertia, You send that he may show the beast To its progenitors in Persia. Daily your brush depicts a home Such as our duller pens are mute on; Squanders Vermilion, Lake and Chrome And Prussian Blue—that furious Teuton Paper beneath your fingers calls For forms and figures to divide it, Colours and cock-eyed capitals And kisses cruciform to hide it. Till brushes sucked and laid apart, And candles lit and daylight dying And you asleep, your works of art Ranged on the mantelpiece and drying— We elders (older when you're gone) Muse on our country's gains and losses ... Ah, Betsey, is it you alone Who send your kisses shaped like crosses? |
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