Work, work, with all your might and main,
For labour brings the truest gain.
A wealthy Labourer lay near to death;
And, summoning his children round the bed,
He thus addressed them, with his latest breath:
"Part not with my estate when I am dead.
My parents left me what I leave to you.
About the place a treasure lies concealed,
No matter where,—search every corner through,
Nor leave a spot unturned in any field.
Go, seek it from the morning till the night."
Their father dead, the loving sons fulfilled
The dying wish, that made their labour light:
From end to end the fields were duly tilled.
The harvest was enormous, though they found
No golden treasures, howsoever small.
And yet the father's last advice was sound,
For Labour is a treasure, after all.
THE HEN WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS.
My little story will explain
An olden maxim, which expresses
How Avarice, in search of gain,
May lose the hoard that it possesses.
The fable tells us that a Hen
Laid golden eggs, each egg a treasure;
Its owner—stupidest of men—
Was miserly beyond all measure.
He thought a mine of wealth to find
Within the Hen, and so he slew it:
He found a bird of common kind—
And lost a pretty fortune through it.
For money-worms, who now and then
Grow poor through trying to be wealthy,
I tell my fable of the Hen;
My tale is good, my moral healthy.
