Portrait of an Artist

MACFINGALL lived, progressive to the core,
To blast all thinking of the day before—
Let a trend grow in favor, he forsook it;
But call a new pill doubtful and he took it.
Psychology, that spinning door of learning,
Had him at one time going and returning,
As theories on the mind, what forces move it,
Found his the self that rose each time to prove it.
By reasoning he showed that reason lied
And art was born when understanding died:
Straightway he saw that he must lose his reason,
Turned lunatic, and painted for a season
His self, bedeviled — though devils he employed
Had erstwhile worked for Bosch and, lately, Freud.
So, in the van, MacFingall ever tented
Within the man that other men invented.