Just so it is with Truth, when _seen_,
Too dazzling far,--'tis from behind
A light, thin allegoric screen,
She thus can safest leach mankind.
FABLE.
In Thibet once there reigned, we're told,
A little Lama, one year old--
Raised to the throne, that realm to bless,
Just when his little Holiness
Had cut--as near as can be reckoned--
Some say his _first_ tooth, some his _second_.
Chronologers and Nurses vary,
Which proves historians should be wary.
We only know the important truth,
His Majesty _had_ cut a tooth.
And much his subjects were enchanted,--
As well all Lamas' subjects _may_ be,
And would have given their heads, if wanted,
To make tee-totums for the baby.
Throned as he was by Right Divine--
(What Lawyers call _Jure Divino_,
Meaning a right to yours and mine
And everybody's goods and rhino.)
Of course, his faithful subjects' purses
Were ready with their aids and succors;
Nothing was seen but pensioned Nurses;
And the land groaned with bibs and tuckers.
Oh! had there been a Hume or Bennet,
Then sitting in the Thibet Senate,
Ye Gods! what room for long debates
Upon the Nursery Estimates!
What cutting down of swaddling-clothes
And pinafores, in nightly battles!
What calls for papers to expose
The waste of sugar-plums and rattles!
But no--if Thibet _had_ M.
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