The Masque of False Visage
When morrow’s glass reflects not truth, but lie,And faces borrowed speak with stolen tongue,The world bewitched forgets the watcher’s eye,Believing hearts where no true hearts are sprung.A phantom voice may whisper love or woe,In likeness sweet, yet hollow in its frame;The shape is fair, but shadowed flowers grow—Their scent deceives, though beauty bears its name.O cunning art, that makes the false seem real,Thou steal’st the soul’s most sacred trust away;Yet man, though fooled, retains the power to feel,To see through night, and guard the dawning day.So let not art unbridled blind our will,For truth must stand, though masks be shifting still.
