Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 6))

THE RUBAIYAT OF KODAK McFILM.

1
WAKE! for the heav’nly Anastigmat quite
Has doffed the velvet Lens-cap of the Night
And floods the world, like some exposéd Plate,
With shafts of glorious, fast, actinic Light.
2
Come, fill your Holders, there’s but little day;
Night Scenes are Myths, turn not your hopes that way
Time makes but short Exposures, and Time’s hand
Is on Life’s Bulb — make pictures while you may.
3
Whether at Naishápúr or Washington,
Whether your Lens is lagging Beck or liquid Grun,
The Prints of Life keep fading shade by shade,
The Plates of Life keep fogging one by one,
4
Each year a thousand Salons brings, you say;
Yes, but where hang the Prints of Yesterday ?
And this same Year that brings St. Louis’ Show
May take Steichen and Käsebier away.
5
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Steichen, called the Great, and all his crew ?
Let Day and Coburn focus as they will,
Or White do Mona Lisas—heed not you.
6
With me along the Street with push-carts strown
That just divides the Ghetto from the Town,
Where name of Art and Stieglitz is forgot-
And snap the Rabbi in his flowing gown !
7
A Box of Chocolates underneath the Bough,
A Film, a Panoramkodak — and Thou
Beside me, posing in the wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
8
Some for the Detail of this World, and some
Sigh for the Breadth of undefinéd Gum;
Ah, squeeze the Bulb and let the Focus go,
Nor heed the rubric of Art’s rule of thumb!