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Shakespeare's, for one, was not an age of smiles:
Not one direction in the many plays
Mentions the word; not once the sonnet says
The lady, or the boy, his heart beguiles
With that expression; for the many wiles
Attributed to folk, no smile betrays
A plan; no, not until more recent days,
The 'photo' era, do the social styles
Global demand the 'cheese' configuration.
It seems one seldom smiled in Shakespeare's day;
And portraiture attests the Mona Lisa
Was shy too: was it mental aberration
To smile as we do? Was it not the way
Then to greet friends, to make amends, to please her?
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