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

9
For those who, plodding, copied Nature’s Face,
And those who struggled for Eclectic Grace,
Alike made no such pictures as, once turned
Toward the Wall, men willingly replace.
10
Think, in this greater Exhibition Hall
Where we are viewed and judged, one and all,
How artist after artist in his pride
Has hung his little Show upon the Wall.
11
The Negatives men set their hearts upon
Prove Fizzles— or Successes ; and anon
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
A little Hypo settles and—they’re gone.
12
They say Museums, only, deign to take
The great Daguerre’s attempts on copper plate,
And Eastmanites in kilts can do the things
Which Wet-plate Masters strove in vain to make.
13
Ah, my belovéd, snap the Scene that gives
To-day’s stern Critic pleasure while he lives;
To-morrow ! — Why, To-morrow we may be
With Yesterday’s seven thousand Negatives.
14
Ah, make the most of Prints we yet may frame,
Before our Treasures too are food for Flame;
Dust to the Dustman, hors-concours to lie
Sans Mount, sans Glass, sans Number and—sans Name.
15
Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
The expert Demonstrator’s Argument
And got much free advice; but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went.
16
With them much Root of Evil did I sow,
But with mine own hand ne’er could make it go;
And this was all the Wisdom that I got —
“You measure them like this, and mix them so.”