ALPHONSO OF CASTILE
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, Alphonso, live and learn,Seeing Nature go astern.Things deteriorate in kind;Lemons run to leaves and rind;Meagre crop of figs and limes;Shorter days and harder times.Flowering April cools and diesIn the insufficient skies.Imps, at high midsummer, blotHalf the sun's disk with a spot;'Twill not now avail to tanOrange cheek or skin of man.Roses bleach, the goats are dry,Lisbon quakes, the people cry.Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,Are no brothers of my blood;--They discredit Adamhood.Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,O'er your ramparts as ye lean,The general debility;Of genius the sterility;Mighty projects countermanded;Rash ambition, brokenhanded;Puny man and scentless roseTormenting Pan to double the dose.Rebuild or ruin: either fillOf vital force the wasted rill,Or tumble all again in heapTo weltering Chaos and to sleep. Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,Which fed the veins of earth and sky,That mortals miss the loyal heats,Which drove them erst to social feats;Now, to a savage selfness grown,Think nature barely serves for one;With science poorly mask their hurt;And vex the gods with question pert,Immensely curious whether youStill are rulers, or Mildew? Masters, I'm in pain with you;Masters, I'll be plain with you;In my palace of Castile,I, a king, for kings can feel.There my thoughts the matter roll,And solve and oft resolve the whole.And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,Ye shall not fail for sound advice.Before ye want a drop of rain,Hear the sentiment of Spain. You have tried famine: no more try it;Ply us now with a full diet;Teach your pupils now with plenty,For one sun supply us twenty.I have thought it thoroughly over,--State of hermit, state of lover;We must have society,We cannot spare variety.Hear you, then, celestial fellows!Fits not to be overzealous;Steads not to work on the clean jump,Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.Men and gods are too extense;Could you slacken and condense?Your rank overgrowths reduceTill your kinds abound with juice?Earth, crowded, cries, 'Too many men!'My counsel is, kill nine in ten,And bestow the shares of allOn the remnant decimal.Add their nine lives to this cat;Stuff their nine brains in one hat;Make his frame and forces squareWith the labors he must dare;Thatch his flesh, and even his yearsWith the marble which he rears.There, growing slowly old at easeNo faster than his planted trees,He may, by warrant of his age,In schemes of broader scope engage.So shall ye have a man of the sphereFit to grace the solar year.
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