Figure me to yourself, I pray — A man of my peculiar cut — Apart from dancing and deray, Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food?— Sir, you would do as well To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day That I should dwell with such a crew, With devil anything to say, Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz, I will be bold and state my view; It's not a place at all — and that's The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny, Innumerable inns; a road; Several Alps indifferent high; The snow's inviolable abode;
Eleven English parsons, all Entirely inoffensive; four True human beings — what I call Human — the deuce a cipher more;
A climate of surprising worth; Innumerable dogs that bark; Some air, some weather, and some earth; A native race — God save the mark!—
A race that works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river that from morn to night Down all the valley plays the fool; Not once she pauses in her flight, Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend, The selfsame pace she hath begun — Still hurry, hurry, to the end — Good God, is that the way to run?
If I a river were, I hope That I should better realise The opportunities and scope Of that romantic enterprise.
I should not ape the merely strange, But aim besides at the divine; And continuity and change I still should labour to combine.
Here should I gallop down the race, Here charge the sterlinglike a bull; There, as a man might wipe his face, Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault, Or smiling providences crown — Whether on high the eternal vault Be blue, or crash with thunder down —
I judge the best, whate'er befall, Is still to sit on one's behind, And, having duly moistened all, Smoke with an unperturbed mind.
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