As rank indeed stood high or low,
Some change it made in visual organs;
Your Peers were decent—Knights, so so—
But all your common people, gorgons!
Of course, if any knave but hinted
That the King's nose was turned awry,
Or that the Queen (God bless her!) squinted—
The judges doomed that knave to die.
But rarely things like this occurred,
The people to their King were duteous,
And took it, on his Royal word,
That they were frights and He was beauteous.
The cause whereof, among all classes,
Was simply this—these island elves
Had never yet seen looking-glasses,
And therefore did not know themselves.
Sometimes indeed their neighbors' faces
Might strike them as more full of reason,
More fresh than those in certain places—
But, Lord, the very thought was treason!
Besides, howe'er we love our neighbor,
And take his face's part, 'tis known
We ne'er so much in earnest labor,
As when the face attackt's our own.
So on they went—the crowd believing—
(As crowds well governed always do)
Their rulers, too, themselves deceiving—
So old the joke, they thought 'twas true.
But jokes, we know, if they too far go,
Must have an end—and so, one day,
Upon that coast there was a cargo
Of looking-glasses cast away.
'Twas said, some Radicals, somewhere,
Had laid their wicked heads together,
And forced that ship to founder there,—
While some believe it was the weather.
However this might be, the freight
Was landed without fees or duties;
And from that hour historians date
The downfall of the Race of Beauties.