Pangloss' Song by Richard Wilbur (#poem)

 

Pangloss' Song:

A comic-opera lyric

 

I

 

Dear boy, you will not hear me speak

  With sorrow or with rancor

Of what has paled my rosy cheek

  And blasted it with canker;

'Twas Love, great Love, that did the deed

  Through Nature's gentle laws,

And how should ill effects proceed

  From so divine a cause?

 

Sweet honey comes from bees that sting,

  As you are well aware

To one adept in reasoning

Whatever pains disease may bring

Are but the tangy seasoning

  To Love's delicious fare.

 

II

 

Columbus and his men, they say,

  Conveyed the virus hither

Whereby my features rot away

  And vital powers wither;

Yet had they not traversed the seas

  And come infected back,

Why, think of all the luxuries

  That modern life would lack!

 

All bitter things conduce to sweet,

  As this example shows;

Without the little spirochete

We'd have no chocolate to eat,

Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet

  The European nose.

 

III

 

Each nation guards its native land

  With cannons and with sentry,

Inspectors look for contraband

  At every port of entry,

Yet nothing can prevent the spread

  Of love's divine disease:

It rounds the world from bed to bed

  As pretty as you please.

 

Men worship Venus everywhere,

  As plainly may be seen;

The decorations which I bear

Are nobler than the Croix de Guerre,

And gained in service of our fair

  And universal Queen.

 

-Richard Wilbur

 

Somehow it seemed time for a little light verse, even if it's verse in celebration (?) of syphilis. 

 

Richard Wilbur wrote this for Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, the first version of which was performed in 1956. This song for Dr. Pangloss (he was the young Candide's tutor) didn't make it into the operetta--I suspect Bernstein thought it would be too hard to sing and so didn't write music for it--but did make it into subsequent volumes of Richard Wilbur's poetry. But the majority of the lyrics in the operetta were by Richard Wilbur, including its most famous song, 'Glitter and Be Gay', sung by Cunegonde.