Mr. and Mrs. Hill – A Poem

At first glance, all I saw in this painting was a couple preparing to receive guests for tea. But there’s so much more to Mr. and Mrs. Hill!

Here’s a great video from the Yale Center for British Art which goes into detail about the finer points of the painting. It’s a “conversation piece” (measuring 76.2 x 63.5 cm /30 x 25 inches), a scaled-down portrait that became popular in smaller Georgian interiors. Conversation pieces showed people in “ordinary clothes” “engaged in a conversation”. What I didn’t see at first glance was that Mrs. Hill is holding a tiny thread between her fingers, which showed she was receiving, conversing, and working, too.

The Yale Center video also details how Arthur Devis, after getting his subjects to sit for him, then used dolls in costume as models as part of the process. It’s why his figures tended to look stiff. More artworks by Arthur Devis here.

As part of my research, I also learned poetry books in the 1700s included classical quotations on the title page. For example:

This title page is where I found the first line of my poem, borrowed from the Latin quotation from Virgil’s Georgics Book III :

“Don’t let the dogs be your last concern, but feed swift Spartan pups, and fierce Molassians both, on rich whey. With them as guards you’ll never fear midnight thieves in the stables, attacks of wolves, or aggressive robbers behind your back.”

Source: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilGeorgicsIII.php

Mr. and Mrs. Hill

Nec tibi cura canum fuerit postrema* – Virgil. The Georgics: Book III.

Nor should the dog’s care be your last concern,
nor Chinese teapot, nor the Chinese urn;
feed swift now my desire for simple life.
A spartan room, and walls refined by light
that falls dappled on the overmantel,
a rural landscape, my dreams of travel.
I sew these glass beads of melancholy
instead on a virtue dress for late tea.
You in your peascod doublet of satin
golden, padded to goose-belly, fattened
in the proper fashion. Conversation
piece this is, as will be consummation;
feed swift our guests our cultivated tastes,
bread and butter, etiquette, and spiced cakes.
Mahogany as moral discipline.
Never fear midnight thieves or wolves or whims,
a Dutch stoneware teapot steals our labour.
My melancholy’s none your concern, either.

©elsp 2026.

*Translation: “Nor let the care of dogs be your last concern.”

YouTube version:

More of my ekphrastic poetry here. I was aiming for heroic couplets. And, finally, perhaps you might like some apple pie with your tea?