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“paint Me As I Am, Warts and All”–
Cromwell

Brave soul, ’twere well if all the same would say,
And artists aim their patron’s wish t’obey.
What signifies a wart, or e’en a scar?
Leave both, skilled hand, and paint us as we are.
The crowfeet paint, the wrinkles on the brow,
The hollow cheek, the form inclined to bow,
The tear-dim’d eye, the hair well streaked with gray,
The hardened hand, begrim’d with soot and clay,
And if you use the seer’s revealing glass,
Remember this, “All flesh is as the grass.”