Xcv

And what I gazed upon was a prodigious Fair, Concourse immense of men and women, crowned or casqued, Turbaned or tiar'd, wreathed, plumed, hatted or wigged, but masked-- Always masked,--only, how? No face-shape, beast or bird, Nay, fish and reptile even, but some one had preferred, From out its frontispiece, feathered or scaled or curled, To make the vizard whence himself should view the world, And where the world believed himself was manifest. Yet when you came to look, mixed up among the rest More funnily by far, were masks to imitate Humanity's mishap: the wrinkled brow, bald pate, And rheumy eyes of Age, peak'd chin and parchment chap, Were signs of day-work done, and wage-time near,--mishap Merely; but, Age reduced to simple greed and guile, Worn apathetic else as some smooth slab, ere-while A clear-cut man-at-arms i' the pavement, till foot's tread Effaced the sculpture, left the stone you saw instead,-- Was not that terrible beyond the mere uncouth? Well, and perhaps the next revolting you was Youth, Stark ignorance and crude conceit, half smirk, half stare On that frank fool-face, gay beneath its head of hair Which covers nothing.