A PICTURE BY RENOIR Two stocky young girls in the foreground stoop For a ball -- red dress, white pinafore. Toned with the sunburnt grass, two more Follow in beige. That wayward troupe Is the butterfly soul of summer. Beyond them a stripe of azure-blue Distance fades to the kind of sky That calls for larks. In the blend of high Colour and hazy line is a clue To the heart of childhood summer. So lively they are, I can all but see Those halcyon girls elude the frame And fly off the picture, intent on their game Wherever the ball may go, set free Into eternal summer. It does what pictures are meant to do -- Grasp a moment and throw it clear Beyond the reach of time. Those four Maidens will romp for ever, true To all our youthful summers. -- C. Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate of England