If Europe ever were to be a
single nation state,
Which many people in it hope will never be its fate,
It would need a common language, one familiar to all,
And which was used by everyone, so there was not a wall
Between the different people, who spoke other tongues at
home,
So they could talk to everyone wherever they might roam.
A bit like in the distant past, when educated men
All spoke and wrote in Latin, so it didn’t matter when
They moved around the cities, for all educated folk,
Had a common language used wherever they awoke.
But educated Latvians and Finns and Czechs today
Can’t teach in any country where they might desire to stay,
For every country now makes use of its own mother tongue,
No longer using that to which in past times they all clung.
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