Classic Poem

German verse and prose to the dogs are equally going,
And the golden age is but a relic of yore!
Logic is worse for the bards, philosophers addle the language,
And in the walk of life common intelligence fails.
Out of her proper æsthetic abode all virtue is banished
To a political home, merely a nuisance to all.
Whither, then, are we bound? They call our natural instincts
Dull; yet if we restrain, we are accounted absurd.
Oh, for the simple address of the serving wenches of Leipzig,
Could we but have those days, simple and harmless again!
Comedy, furnish afresh th' accustomed weekly enjoyment,
—Sigismund in love, Marcarill as a buffoon!
Tragedy full of flavour and epigrammatic allusion,
And the staid minuet buskined as ever of old!
Come, like a marionette, Philosophy, patiently pausing.
When in self-defence Nature objects to the shears!
Come, thou ancient prose, in honest measures expressing
Thoughts of new and old, which the disciple accepts.
German verse and prose to the dogs are equally going,
And the golden age is but a relic of yore!