Nothing is perfect in this world of ours, The thorn grows with the rose, that queen of flowers; Methinks the angels, who for our protection Dwell in the skies, are stain’d with imperfection. The tulip has no scent. The saying is: Honour once stole a sucking-pig, old quiz; Had not Lucretia stabb’d herself, she may be Would have in time brought forth a thumping baby. The haughty peacock has but ugly feet; A woman may be witty and discreet, And yet, like Voltaire’s Henriade, may weary, Or be, like Klopstock’s famed Messias, dreary. The best of cows no Spanish knows, I ween, Massmann no Latin. Much too smooth are e’en The marble buttocks of Canova’s Venus; Too flat is Massmann’s nose (but this between us). In pretty songs are hidden wretched rhymes, As bees’ stings in the honey lurk at times; Of vulnerable heel the son of Thetis, And Alexandre Dumas is quite a Metis. The fairest star that in the heavens has birth, When it has caught a cold, straight falls to earth; Prime cider of the barrel bears the traces, And many a spot the sun’s bright face defaces. And thou, much honour’d Madam, even thou Faultless art not, nor free from failings now. “What, then, is wanting?” askest thou and starest,— A bosom, and a soul within it, fairest! |