All, both in prose and in verse, in Germany fast is
decaying;
Far behind us, alas, lieth the golden age now!
For by philosophers spoiled is our language-our
logic by poets,
And no more common sense governs our passage
through life.
From the aesthetic, to which she belongs, now virtue
is driven,
And into politics forced, where shes
a troublesome guest.
Where are we hastening now? If natural, dull
we are voted,
And if we put on constraint, then the world
calls us absurd.
Oh, thou joyous artlessness mongst the poor
maidens of Leipzig,
Witty simplicity come,-come, then,
to glad us again!
Comedy, oh repeat thy weekly visits so precious,
Sigismund, lover so sweet,-Mascarill,
valet jocose!
Tragedy, full of salt and pungency epigrammatic,-
And thou, minuet-step of our old buskin preserved!
Philosophic romance, thou mannikin waiting with patience,
When, gainst the pruners attack,
Nature defendeth herself!
Ancient prose, oh return,-so nobly and
boldly expressing
All that thou thinkest and hast thought,-and
what the reader thinks too
All, both in prose and in verse, in Germany fast is
decaying;
Far behind us, alas, lieth the golden age now!
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