Works of Frederick Engels, 1839
Written: about April 27, 1839
First published: in the Bremisches Unterhaltungsblatt, No. 34, April 27, 1839
Dear Bremen Courier,
Please don’t be offended
If you've become the laughing-stock of town.
Remember, friend, that folk have always tended
To ridicule what’s patently unsound.
Your sunshine days have very nearly ended
In the three months that you've been trotting round.
Have you been saying things you didn’t ought,
To give yourself such food for afterthoughts
My poems cost little effort when I did them;
The donkey work was almost wholly done.
I took your articles and parodied them;
The subject-matter came from you alone.
Simply subtract the rhyme-schemes and the rhythm —
The image that remains is all your own.
Rage, if you like, at your respectful and
Obedient servant,
Theodor Hildebrand