They coaxed me up a hundred stairs,
They lured me to their den,
For me they laid their artful snares—
Those photographing men.
They dragged me to a room of glass
Beneath a blazing sun,
I thought I should have died. Alas!
I’m nearly fourteen stone!
They saw their victim pant and blow,
They heard him cry, “I melt!”
But ne’er a one for all my woe
One grain of pity felt.
They seized my head and screwed it round,
And fixed it in a vice,
And simpered when they had me bound,
“That pose is very nice!
“Look up—look up, and wear a smile;
Look pleasant, if you please.
You must keep still a little while;
Just straighten up your knees.”
’Tis thus they jeer and jibe at me
As, faint and hot, I try
An inch before my nose to see
With sunstroke in my eye.
I think of all the bitter wrongs
My later life has known;
I writhe beneath Fate’s cruel thongs,
I knit my brow and groan.
And still with many a smile and smirk
The artist trips about,
And gives my chin a little jerk
And sticks my elbows out.
Ye gods, am I a grinning ape
To pose and posture thus?
Am I a man in human shape
Or turkey that they truss?
My head is free; with fiendish mirth
I raise a vengeful hand,
And dash the camera to earth,
And fell the iron stand.
I take the artist by the throat
And pin him to the wall,
And jerk his chin and tear his coat,
And hold his head in thrall.
I bid the trembling victim smile,
I cry, “Be gay and laugh,
And in the very latest style
I’ll take your photograph!”
I twisted till I broke his neck,
I baked him in the sun;
I left the room an awful wreck,
And then the deed was done.
They held an inquest on the bits;
Ye photographing crew,
Before to you the writer sits
Just read that inquest through.