BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien <br />And portly tyrants dyed with crime <br />Change, in the transformation scene, <br />At Christmas, in the pantomime, <br /> <br />Instanter, at the prompter's cough, <br />The fairy bonnets them, and they <br />Throw their abhorred carbuncles off <br />And blossom like the flowers in May. <br /> <br />- So mankind, to angelic eyes, <br />So, through the scenes of life below, <br />In life's ironical disguise, <br />A travesty of man, ye go: <br /> <br />But fear not: ere the curtain fall, <br />Death in the transformation scene <br />Steps forward from her pedestal, <br />Apparent, as the fairy Queen; <br /> <br />And coming, frees you in a trice <br />From all your lendings - lust of fame, <br />Ungainly virtue, ugly vice, <br />Terror and tyranny and shame. <br /> <br />So each, at last himself, for good <br />In that dear country lays him down, <br />At last beloved and understood <br />And pure in feature and renown.<br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/behold-as-goblins-dark-of-mien/
