Song for Europe

In Competition No. 3002 you were invited to provide lyrics to the European anthem.
 
The anthem has as its melody the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 but dispenses with Schiller’s words. I wondered if anyone might go back to his 1785 ‘Ode to Joy’ and repurpose the following lines: ‘Yea, if any hold in keeping/ Only one heart all his own/ Let him join us, or else weeping/ Steal from out our midst, unknown.’ No one did, though there were frequent nods in the entry to other parts of the ode.
 
Over to the winners, who pocket £25 each. John Whitworth was an unlucky loser and W.J. Webster takes the extra fiver.
 

Fair Europa’s old, old story —
Innocence seduced by bull:
She was covered, not with glory,
Maid unmade, a trusting gull.
Out of such unnatural union
Came a still-born Eurostate,
Comity without communion,
Rule by distant delegate.
Symbol of this misconception,
Mined from German mother lode,
Sounds an anthem-like deception,
Brussels’ grand symphonic ode.