By Harp Song and Moonlight.

The moon was full and spilled herself like silver water across the marble floor of the museum. The moonlight rose like waves to the picture frames and ghostly little faces peered out, uncanny in their liveliness and silence. Across the hall, the night watch man was engaged in a moral dilemma. A magnificent harp was on loan from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the night watch man, (secretly), had been taking harp lessons for six months now. And now he wanted to play this harp. He realized it was wrong. He was the one who had hung the ‘No Touching’ sign. Actually, he wasn’t entirely happy with himself that he was learning the harp at all. It shamed him that his secret passion was harp playing. He looked at this harp again. The moon light made the strings glimmer. Across the room, only a humongous statue of Captain Cook and the winking Sydney harbour watched. Both seemed to approve the action. Carefully, the night watchman pulled the harp towards himself and began to tentatively pick out the first bars of In Tara’s Halls.

What happened next is very strange. The portraits in the gallery awoke. Gainsboroughs ripe with silk and Van Dykes stiff with lace struggled from their gilt frames and stood upon the marble floor. Soon, a group of royal Velázquezs strode in and quite a party began. There was something of a language barrier but the portraits instantly perceived in one another that air of luxury that defines the high born or very rich and all were relaxed and happy. There was one tense moment when a Michelangelo was refused entry for decency issues, but Rembrandt’s Belshazzar graciously unwound his turban which made an excellent kilt, so the party continued unabated.

Indeed, if it weren’t for the Bruegels, I suppose the party would have gone on until the last note played. But the harp was not the only international loan in the museum. A collection of Bruegels had arrived from the Netherlands and the music had woken them as well. They tumbled from their frames with their onions and their cheeses and their pies. They hobbled down the hall towards the party on their walking sticks and bandaged legs. And when they arrived, that is when the problem started. “How ever did they get in here?” shrieked a Gainsborough, as she swished her skirt away. “This is a very posh party!”

The other grand portraits agreed in their various languages. It was a very posh party. “How can these peasants even be in the same building as us!?” demanded the Gainsborough angrily. The grand portraits were perplexed and distressed. How indeed, did these low paintings get into the same building?

I do not know how this would have ended had it been allowed to go on. But quite suddenly the night watch man remembered the security cameras that watched the harp. His courage fled from him and he rushed to remove the interesting footage he had just created. And with that final half twanged note, all went back to how it was. Every portrait popped back into its frame, as taut in their place of history as the strings on a well tuned harp. There they stand forever, watching for an eternity and never understanding.

Portraits do not hang in museums for their own grandeur. They hang as a testament to the skill of the master who created them. Thus the ragged beggar graces a museum wall as eloquently as a prince. For the glory of a creation does not reveal its self in how it was made, but rather in the fact that the Creator judged it worthy of being made at all.

Writing and illustrations are copyrighted to R.M. Hamilton. The Rembrandt used is in the public domain and is called The Night Watch. It is sourced from Wikipedia.