Hogarth

Young William Hogarth had a critic's eye His father ran a Latin speaking café That drove the family into bankruptcy As an apprentice to a silversmith He learned the trade, excelled at artistry He joined a drawing school to hone his skill Run by the talented Sir James Thornhill And then, Hogarth eloped with Thornhill's daughter He never balked at ruffling the odd feather He loved the theatre. Kept a pug called Trump Painted a Harlot's Progress, Marriage à la mode A Rake's Progress, from heir to sodden lump He drew Miss Sarah Malcolm in her cell Two days before she died upon the scaffold And painted fairs, and strolling actresses The scenes in Bedlam, Gin's appalling hold Judith Dufour had throttled her sweet babe To pawn its clothes to keep herself in drink All this, and other horror tales were told He fashioned portraits of the famed and poor Of the eleventh Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser Beheaded on Tower Hill, and the Shrimp Girl To immortality he duly raised her Short, blue eyed, witty, stocky, kindly man He died at sixty six, a loss to Art Hogarth, in his rumbustious century Painted the truth, and of that truth was part