By some strange fancy led,
The same wise blunderhead,
But two or three days later,
Had chosen for her rest
Another weasel's nest,
This last, of birds a special hater.
New peril brought this step absurd:
Without a moment's thought or puzzle,
Dame weasel opened her peaked muzzle
To eat th' intruder as a bird.
"Hold! do not wrong me," cried the bat;
"I'm truly no such thing as that.
Your eyesight strange conclusions gathers.
What makes a bird, I pray? Its feathers.
I'm cousin of the mice and rats.
Great Jupiter confound the cats!"
The bat, by such adroit replying,
Twice saved herself from dying.
And many a human stranger
Thus turns his coat in danger;
And sings, as suits, where'er he goes,
"God save the king!"—or "save his foes!"
The Bird wounded by an Arrow.
A bird, with plumèd arrow shot,
In dying case deplored her lot:
"Alas!" she cried, "the anguish of the thought!
This ruin partly by myself was brought!
Hard-hearted men! from us to borrow
What wings to us the fatal arrow!
But mock us not, ye cruel race,
For you must often take our place."
The work of half the human brothers
Is making arms against the others.
