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THE CRITIC. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, vol. 1 (Poems) [1885]

Edition used:

Goethe’s Works, illustrated by the best German artists, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885). Vol. 1.

Part of: Goethe’s Works, 5 vols.

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THE CRITIC.

  • I HAD a fellow as my guest,
  • Not knowing he was such a pest,
  • And gave him just my usual fare;
  • He ate his fill of what was there,
  • And for desert my best things swallow’d;
  • Soon as his meal was o’er, what follow’d?
  • Led by the Deuce to a neighbor he went,
  • And talk’d of my food to his heart’s content:
  • “The soup might surely have had more spice,
  • The meat was ill-brown’d, and the wine wasn’t nice.”
  • A thousand curses alight on his head!
  • ’Tis a critic, I vow! Let the dog be struck dead!