Big boats in small harbours

Alfred Wallis the famous painter was born in 1855
Went to sea in a Devonport schooner as a boy aged only nine

When 20 he married an older widow and moved to St Ives
They had and lost 2 children and he loved her till she died

Sad and lonely at 70, he started painting for company
Using half empty tins of boat paint he captured the mood of the sea

Big boats in small harbours the perspective is rather strange
But the sails and ropes and boat parts are accurately portrayed

Sold his pictures wrapped in newsprint for shillings while alive
It was Wallis who started a trend for artists to move to St Ives

Now his pictures are really trendy and are exhibited in the Tate
They’ve put “Alfred Wallis Artist and Mariner “in tiles on his grave