A DEGENERATE AGE.
Where is the man who has been tried and found strong and sound?
Where is the friend of reason and of knowledge?
I see only skeptics and weaklings.
I see only the prisoners in the durance of the senses.
And every fool and every spendthrift
Thinks himself as great a master as Aristotle.
Think'st thou that they have written poems,
Call'st thou that a Song?
I call it the cackling of the ravens.
The zeal of the prophet must free poesy
From the embrace of wanton youths.
My song I have inscribed on the forehead of Time,
They know it and hate it—for it is lofty .