Poetry

Ben Hall's Photograph

Kevin Densley

Though to many Ben Hall is an oft-reproduced

daguerreotype of a handsome man,

taken in a Sydney studio

in the late eighteen-fifties,

one of those old, faded civil war types

of photographs which blanch the face,

highlight the black/white contrasts

and make its sitter seem

forlorn, romantic and doomed

—and photographs so often lie—

in Ben’s sad case,

his picture

pretty much did him justice.