What’s in a Name?

IN letters large upon a frame,

That visitors might see,

The painter placed his humble name:

O’Callaghan McGee.

And from Beersheba unto Dan,

The critics with a nod

Exclaimed: “This painting Irishman

Adores his native sod.

“His stout heart’s patriotic flame

There’s naught on earth can quell;

He takes no wild romantic name

To make his pictures sell!”

Then poets praised in sonnets neat

His stroke so bold and free;

No parlor wall was thought complete

That hadn’t a McGee.

All patriots before McGee

Threw lavishly their gold;

His works in the Academy

Were very quickly sold.

His “Digging Clams at Barnegat,”

His “When the Morning Smiled,”

His “Seven Miles from Ararat,”

His “Portrait of a Child,”

Were purchased in a single day

And lauded as divine.

*****

That night as in his atelier

The artist sipped his wine,

And looked upon his gilded frames,

He grinned from ear to ear:

“They little think my real name’s

V. Stuyvesant De Vere!”