Page 36 - Poetry-Whimsy

What’s in a Name?

In letters large upon the frame,
That visitors might see,
The painter placed his humble name:
O’Callaghan McGee.
And from Beersheba to Dan,
The critics with a nod
Exclaimed: “This painting Irishman
Adores his native sod.
“His stout heart’s patriotic flame
There’s naught on earth can quell;
He takes no wild romantic name
To make his pictures sell!”

Then poets praised in sonnets neat
His stroke so bold and free;
No parlor wall was thought complete
That hadn’t a McGee.

All patriots before McGee
Threw lavishly their gold;
His works in the Academy
Were very quickly sold.
His “Digging Clams at Barnegat,”
His “When the Morning Smiled,”
His “Seven Miles from Ararat,”
His “Portrait of a Child,”
Were purchased in a single day
And lauded as divine.—
* * *
That night as in his atelier
The artist sipped his wine,
And looked upon his gilded frames,
He grinned from ear to ear: —
“They little think my real name’s
V. Stuyvesant De Vere!”

— R.K. Munkittrick (Century Magazine, 1883)

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