The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

Fragment on Painters

   There is an evil which that Race attaints
   Who represent God's World with oily paints,
   Who mock the Universe, so rare and sweet,
   With spots of colour on a canvas sheet,
   Defile the Lovely and insult the Good
   By scrawling upon little bits of wood.
   They'd snare the moon, and catch the immortal sun
   With madder brown and pale vermilion,
   Entrap an English evening's magic hush . . .