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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 06 - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes by Unknown
page 83 of 645 (12%)
The war of passions, pleasure without rest--
Such boons are all that vulgar life can offer.

Alas! a sudden clamor put to flight
My bliss, and all my comfort rudely banished;
'Twas such a screaming, ramping, raging fight
That mid the uproar straight my flower vanished.

Then on all sides began a savage war
Of argument, with scolding and with jangling.
Some voices surely I had heard before--
Why, 'twas my bas-reliefs had fall'n a-wrangling!

Do old delusions haunt these marbles here,
And urge them on to frantic disputations?
The terror-striking shout of Pan rings clear,
While Moses hurls his stern denunciations.

Alack! the wordy strife will have no end,
Beauty and Truth will ever be at variance,
A schism still the ranks of man will rend
Into two camps, the Hellenes and Barbarians.

Both parties thus reviled and cursed away,
And none who heard could tell the why or whether,
Till Balaam's ass at last began to bray
And soon outbawled both gods and saints together.

With strident-sobbing hee-haw, hee-haw there--
His unremitting discords without number--
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