“When Earth’s last picture is painted”
When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in the golden chair;
They shall splash at a tn-league canvas with brushes of comets’hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalen, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as they are.
[1892] — Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
opgenomen in A choice of Kipling’s Verse
made by T.S. Eliot, with an essay on Rudyard Kipling (1941)
De meesten kennen de eerste voornaam van deze schijver niet eens, en velen, die grote bewonderaars zijn van zijn Jungle Book uit 1894, weten niet dat hij de eerste Brit was, die de Nobelprijs voor Literatuur in ontvangst heeft mogen nemen, dit jaar precies een eeuw geleden.