WHEN through the nations stalks contagion wild, <br />We from them cautiously should steal away. <br />E'en I have oft with ling'ring and delay <br />Shunn'd many an influence, not to be defil'd. <br />And e'en though Amor oft my hours beguil'd, <br />At length with him preferr'd I not to play, <br />And so, too, with the wretched sons of clay, <br />When four and three-lined verses they compil'd. <br />But punishment pursues the scoffer straight, <br />As if by serpent-torch of furies led <br />From bill to vale, from land to sea to fly. <br />I hear the genie's laughter at my fate; <br />Yet do I find all power of thinking fled <br />In sonnet-rage and love's fierce ecstasy.<br /><br />Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nemesis-4/
