I know I’m very late to the party here, but this week’s poem is chosen because of a TV series I’ve recently been catching up on: The Repair Shop.
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two,
Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
Poem 322. When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted
When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours 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 a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, 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!
In this short poem, Kipling celebrates the joy to be found in creating things—his metaphor is paintings, but it applies equally to any art or craft.
He imagines the end of days when the last picture has been painted, the tubes of paint all dried up and the colours faded as they are in old paintings and—this might have been something of a comment—the absence of any criticism of the art. At this point, he suggests, every artisan will get the rest they deserve (Kipling evidently appreciated the toil that comes with mastery of one’s craft) until they are called once again to exercise their talents.
When they are called, the entire universe will provide their canvas for their efforts; their brushes will be comets, and their inspiration the saints among whom they sit; since they will suffer no exhaustion or fatigue, they will be able to paint for ages in the geological sense rather than the figurative one.
In the last stanza Kipling paints a picture of artists working not for profit or fame but only for the joy of the work itself, only God providing encouragement through praise or blame to guide his craftspeople toward their best work.
The last stanza makes me think of the masters of their crafts each working in their “separate star,” but doing it for the joy of the thing more than the money or the fame, though the TV series has certainly brought plenty of that to the participants.
I like it because it is a tribute to hardworking artisans everywhere and it reminds me of my father with his passion for his hobby of woodworking.
Links
- Read about the poem at The Kipling Society.
- Listen to Kipling performing his own poem on YouTube.