Delicate Truth once went walking in lovely apparel,
Spruced up to gladden the grey, crazy invalids’ sight;
Crude Falsity thought she’d get this Truth over a barrel;
She asked her: "Why don’t you stay at my place for the night?"

Thus with a heart full of trust Truth quite happily dozed off,
Blew little bubbles and smiled to herself as she dreamt;
Falsity cunningly crept in and snatched her bedclothes off;
Sinking her teeth into Truth she grew fully content.

Then she got up and she screwed her mug into a bulldog’s:
"She’s just a woman, so why should she make people care?"
There is no difference at all between Truth and a falsehood -
With the proviso, of course, that they’re both of them bare.

Next she picked ribbons of gold from Truth’s plaits with no effort,
Grabbed all her clothes, which she held up and measured by eye,
Took all her money, her watch and, yes, even her passport,
Swore like a trooper and spat as she waved her goodbye.

Only come morning did Truth see her things had been taken;
Looking herself up and down she was baffled and stunned;
Someone had somewhere got hold of some soot - it was caked on
All over pure, spotless Truth, but no harm had been done.

Truth only laughed when the stones people threw at her caught her:
"Falsity’s done this, and Falsity’s got my clothes too!"
Two crazy invalids wrote down some notes to report her,
Shouting out all of the bad names the pair of them knew.

Calling her "trollop" and worse, they set out to mistreat her,
Set loose the chained dog and said as they rubbed her with clay:
"Don’t let her within one hundred and one kilometres;
Make sure in twenty-four hours she’s been sent away."

That report ended in words full of poison and malice
(Also they pinned lots of crimes on her they couldn’t solve):
"Some piece of filth’s making out that she’s Truth when the fact is
She’s just a drunk who’s slept rough till her clothes have dissolved."

Naked Truth sobbed as she called upon God as her witness,
Ailed for a long time and wandered the earth in dire need,
While dirty Falsity, having made horse theft her business,
Skipped on the long, dainty legs of a pure-blooded steed.

Rubbing along with an obvious lie’s not that tough now;
Looking at Truth hurt their eyes and made people annoyed.
Still uncorrupted, Truth this very day roams the rough ground;
Due to her nakedness, people she tries to avoid.

Maybe some odd type might still try to battle Truth’s corner,
Though in all truth there’s a fig’s worth of truth in his speech;
Unadorned Truth will eventually sweep all before her -
If she can walk in the shoes of bare-faced Falsity.

Often you’ll pour out a hundred and seventy gram-sized
Glasses for all when you’re not sure where you’re going to sleep;
They can undress you and that is the pure, naked truth, guys:
Look who’s now wearing your trousers, it’s base Falsity;
Look who’s perusing your watch now, it’s base Falsity;
Look who’s controlling your horse now, it’s base Falsity.