“Seine on the Bougival,” Claude Monet (1869), The Currier Museum of Art
 

The dappled river and the bridge
Give the painter of light an edge,
Imagining a world of pure beauty
In which plein air is your duty.

Giverny is the perfect place
To paint the loveliness of space,
To catch a thousand different plays
Of light on each scene as it stays

To transfigure each moment
Of the sun’s frolicking intent
To make the viewer wish to dance—
A kind of Paradise by chance.

Such beauty is not at all untrue,
Although construed so not to rue
The day of birth or death as right;
It’s meant to show another Light.

Ordained Servant Online, April 2021