But gnashes at his wings’ confining band,
And mounts, with lightning-look, the airy track.
No more the being that he was, but royally,
A spirit now, a god, up mounteth he;
Unfurls at once, as for their far storm-flight,
His splendid wings, and shoots to heaven with fierce, wild neigh;
And ere the eye can follow him, away
He melts into the clear blue height.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest name in German literature, is hardly to be classed among the humorists.
But a short extract from his Reynard the Fox is quoted.