Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/77

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AFTER WHISTLER
This mezzo-tint of mist and smoke blue air,These gray blue waters, gray black cherry treesAre Whistler's manner to the brushtip. . . theseAnd shore-lamps lit against the nearing night,That lie in little broken lanes of light.
He would have washed these wistful colors inWith brooding hand and spirit edged and keen—His vision and the subtle hour akin—Seeing beyond the symbol the unseen,The overtones of tint, the underglowWhich lends that nameless gleam of lustre-wareTo slow-rippled river there.
Blue-silver lights! He would have loved them so!And that black bridge, long-spanned and low,With the frail mist fringing the farther end.What art he had for bridges—skill to blendTheir arches into his backgrounds of blue air.
Swiftly he would have caught this nocturne mood,This mood of mist and sky,And held it in few strokes and fewer tones,Set thereBelow the blurred-in trees his ButterflyAnd called it "Silver and Blue." . . .Bridge-Builder of dreams, I dedicateThis river dusk to you.
The MeasureAgnes Kendrick Gray

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