The Ploughman and his Sons.
The farmer's patient care and toil
Are oftener wanting than the soil.
A wealthy ploughman drawing near his end,
Call'd in his sons apart from every friend,
And said, "When of your sire bereft,
The heritage our fathers left
Guard well, nor sell a single field.
A treasure in it is conceal'd:
The place, precisely, I don't know,
But industry will serve to show.
The harvest past, Time's forelock take,
And search with plough, and spade, and rake;
Turn over every inch of sod,
Nor leave unsearch'd a single clod."
The father died. The sons—and not in vain—
Turn'd o'er the soil, and o'er again;
That year their acres bore
More grain than e'er before.
Though hidden money found they none,
Yet had their father wisely done,
To show by such a measure,
That toil itself is treasure.
The Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin.
Clad in a lion's shaggy hide,
An ass spread terror far and wide,
And, though himself a coward brute,
Put all the world to scampering rout:
But, by a piece of evil luck,
A portion of an ear outstuck,
Which soon reveal'd the error
Of all the panic terror.
Old Martin did his office quick.
Surprised were all who did not know the trick,
To see that Martin, at his will,
Was driving lions to the mill!
In France, the men are not a few
Of whom this fable proves too true;
Whose valour chiefly doth reside
In coat they wear and horse they ride.