Fitfully playing through mute city streets

At midnight weary of day's feast and game—

'Friends, your famed fort 's a ruin past repair!

Its use is—to proclaim it had a use

Obsolete long since. Climb and study there

How to paint barbican and battlement

I' the scenes of our new theatre! We fight

Now—by forbidding neighbors to sell steel

Or buy wine, not by blowing out their brains!

Moreover, while we let time sap the strength