Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Maccracken

GETTING his pictures, like his supper, cheap,
Far, far away in Belfast by the sea,
His watchful one—eyed uninvaded sleep
MacCracken sleepeth. While the P.R.B.
Must keep the shady side, he walks a swell
Through spungings of perennial growth and height:
And far away in Belfast out of sight,
By many an open do and secret sell,
Fresh daubers he makes shift to scarify,
And fleece with pliant shears the slumbering “green.”
There he has lied, though aged, and will lie,
Fattening on ill—got pictures in his sleep,
Till some Præraphael prove for him too deep.
Then, once by Hunt and Ruskin to be seen,
Insolvent he will turn, and in the Queen's Bench die. 

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 20. Gracious Moonlight
2. Last Sonnets at Paris
3. To Thomas Woolner
4. At Issue
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 81. Memorial Thresholds

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