Till fotografen

Apropå den förra bloggposten om de retuscherade socialisterna, kan de med fördel kontrasteras mot den frihetlige versmakaren Berton Braley som skev följande poem "To a photographer" till den fotograf som avbildade honom på ålderns höst.

I have known love and hate and work and fight;
I have lived largely, I have dreamed and planned,
 And Time, the Sculptor, with a master hand
Has graven on my face for all men's sight
Deep lines of joy and sorrow, growth and blight
Of labor and of service and command
 - And now you show me this, this waxen, bland
And placid face, unlined, unwrinkled, white.

 This is not I - this fatuous thing you show,
 Retouched and smoothed and prettified to please,
 Put back the wrinkles and the lines I know;
 I have spent blood and tears achieving these,
 Out of the pain, the struggle and the wrack
 These are my scars of battle - put them back!