Figure me to yourself, I pray— A man of my peculiar cut— Apart from dancing and deray, Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food?—Sir, you would do as well To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day That I should dwell with such a crew, With devil anything to say, Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz, I will be bold and state my view; It’s not a place at all—and that’s The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny, Innumerable inns; a road; Several Alps indifferent high; The snow’s inviolable abode;
Eleven English parsons, all Entirely inoffensive; four True human beings—what I call Human—the deuce a cipher more;
A climate of surprising worth; Innumerable dogs that bark; Some air, some weather, and some earth; A native race—God save the mark!—
A race that works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp’d, with rusty dirk, I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river that from morn to night Down all the valley plays the fool; Not once she pauses in her flight, Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend, The selfsame pace she hath begun— Still hurry, hurry, to the end— Good God, is that the way to run?