Vincent Van Gogh - Biography in Verse

Vincent Van Gogh

A sullen and quiet boy
Named for a brother dead,
Became a man tormented and raw
With hair of flaming red.

He turned this way and that
Hunting for clear direction,
Thwarted in love for a woman
He found God his vocation.

Sleeping on straw in the cold,
Drinking water, eating only bread.
Considered low, driven from the fold;
He surveyed his life with dread.

In Paris, warm fraternal care,
He found his oeuvre in welcome arms.
With talk and passion artists share
He discovered the colour of oils charms.

In expressionism he became the expression.
In his hands, the very paint was clever.
We lost a genius to depression,
“The sadness will last forever”.