11 For the poem was their ahonor,
12 And they believed the btale it told,
13 And more than this, they knew the work,
14 Was made of every cword,
15 And if one dforgot the scheme of verse,
16 Or lost its ediscipline,
17 The fempire spun upon their page,
18 Would slacken and gunwind.
19 And, yes, they grew tired when centuries of work,
20 hDrained their pen of sweat and blood;
21 iWhen the worlds they had exalted in their verse,
22 Started writing jfevered lyrics of their own.
23 Still, they might have lingered,
24 Had they not had a son and heir,
25 kThe black sheep of a thousand rhymes,
26 But lgrown at last, and eager for a dare.
27 O you can point with mirth at the Brits today,
28 And tick off all your clichés of mdecay,
29 But white men or not,
30 nThey spread law through the world,
31 And gave ous the gift of a dream,
32 With pfreedom concealed in their lockstep refrains,
33 Of dignity, duty, and brains.
34 qThey made freedom scan,
35 Then they passed on the rpen,
36 To their son of two hundred years:
37 Now, will you last as long,
38 And give so much to a son?
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39 Or will you scribble an easy pamphlet,
40 In the safety of your home,
41 And ship it off to Britain,
42 To slip inside their dusty tome?
CHAPTER 281 The way of the Krauts was an opera,
2 sBig and loud and long.
3 The voices were tgigantic,
4 uThe words were steeped in magic,
5 Orchestrated by vmachine.
6 They wdared to think one opera,
7 Could girdle the globe and bring,
8 xOne reason and one answer,
9 To a world that needs to sing.
10 They deified their ytenors,
11 Made zmillions play their score,
12 And at the final curtain call,
13 aaThey soaked the earth in gore.
14 But there's nothing wrong with opera,
15 If it doesn't go insane,
16 And maybe object lessons are worth their price in pain:
17 For bblimits lose their meaning,
18 When all the world forgets,
19 That cctimid sins and whining,
20 Get gross and terrifying,
21 When you mix them with ddambition,
22 And play them to a nation,
23 That has no fear of eereaching,
24 ffWhere others merely yearn in secret shame.
25 And if the Krautish opera makes you mourn for all Mankind,
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