Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Cologne

In Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches ;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks !
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne ;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine ?

1828, published 1834

(proofed against E. H. Coleridge's 1927 edition of STC's poems)