If you hear a voice within you say, “You cannot paint,”
Then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
-Vincent Van Gogh
---
There came a key to mad Van Gogh;
There came a madman’s eye
That saw a terror in the crows
That swarmed a trembling sky;
And though mad Vincent never knew
The gain within the gift,
He never lost the golden key
That scarcely he could lift!
Dwarfed by the trees that rose like fiends,
He painted where he stood,
And through the branches brushed the stars
That swirled above the woods
And in each star, the face of Man,
He claimed as if his own;
And in their beauty, found a truth
That is by wise men known;
For God, in trust, gives not his keys
With charms and binding strings,
But patiently will wait on faith,
The rarest of all things
He gives what keys cannot be lost,
But leaves not his consent
For gifts to perish in disuse
Or bleak bewilderment
He gives keys freely like the dawn
That crushes as it thrills
By pouring forth its Light Divine
Upon the waking hills
He gives keys heavy like a heart
That bears a burden old
Or beats beneath a hoary breast
In rhythms, quick and bold
Therefore, did Vincent turn the lock;
Therefore, did he descend
Into the pit of Man’s despair
And, there, his key, defend
Against the craven beast within
That shudders in the fear
Of those who have not keys themselves
Or have no business here.
