I have known joy and woe and toil and fight I have lived largely, I have dreamed and planned, And Time, the sculptor, with a master hand, Upon my face has wrought for all men's sight The lines and seams of Life, of growth and blight, Of struggle and of service and command; And now you show me This — this waxen, bland And placid face — unlined, untroubled, white! This is not I — this fatuous face you show Retouched and prettified and smoothed to please, Put back the wrinkles and the lines I know; I have spent blood and brain achieving these, Out of the pain, the sorrow and the wrack, They are my scars of battle — PUT THEM BACK! |