XXI
Then swart Gorgona rears her snaky Zone
Demanding Sip of Lip in poisonous Tone
While back Abaft I cower, for well I wot
A Face like that needs not a Chaperone.
XXII
The Fair of Vanity has many a Booth
To sell its spangled Wares of Age and Youth;
And there have I beheld the Wordlings buy
Their Paris Gowns to clothe the Naked Truth.
XXIII
But cannot Beauty render Sin the less
When Aphroditan Damosels transgress,
Making the Error lovely with the Thought -
A Dimple is its own Forgiviness?
XXIV
Into your Soul may truculent Daemons pass
All hugger-mugger in that dun Morass,
But while the Rouge is mantling to your Cheek,
Nothing will chide you in your Looking-Glass.
XXV
Unto the Glass Gorgona torques her Eye
Beholding there Ten Myriad Fragments fly,
The Parts dispersing with lugubrious Din -
Who will invent a Mirror that will lie?