Ars Amoris

Wolleward and weetshoed wente I forþ after
As a recchelees renk þat [reccheþ of no wo],
And yede forþ lik a lorel al my lif tyme,
Til I weex wery of þe world and wilned eft to slepe,
And lened me to a lenten, and longe tyme I slepte;
| Reste me þere and rutte faste til Ramis palmarum.
Of gerlis and of Gloria laus gretly me dremed,
And how Osanna by Organye olde folk songen,

Ce qui est beau à Leningrad, c’est Saint Petersbourg.
What fellow traveller returned from the U.S.S.R.,
Burdened with souvenirs in the form of second thoughts, said
That, rephrasing the Slavic platitude as a reactionary epigram? Thence
One must count oneself privileged to have escaped empty-handed,
Frisked in exit by the incompetent customs of the country
Who got everything backwards, inspecting my papers with a glass:
Bourgeois formalism apart, my handwriting looks like a decadent cipher.