| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | The Critic’s Conversion to the Sonnet | | By Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862) |
| | Translated by Alexander Platt
THOU, who but lately from the Critic’s stool, | |
| So sorely jaded us poor sonneteers, | |
| And, spurting fire and gall about our ears, | |
| Did’st execrate us to Hell’s lowest pool;— | |
| Thou spotless ermine of the olden school, | 5 |
| O, what a blot thy snow-white hide besmears! | |
| Thou ’st toodled forth a sonnet, it appears, | |
| A whining sigh to win a lady-fool! | |
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| Hast thou forgot thy proffer’d admonition? | |
| Forgot what veteran Voss, so oft dictating, | 10 |
| Half-angrily, half-jestingly, enjoined? | |
| Forsooth, thou ’rt very like a new edition | |
| Of him, who gave his pilfering boy a rating, | |
And then chopped up the cherries he’d purloined.
LEIPZIG, 1848. | | | | |
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