The angel, present by his side,
Bade him not in such hopes confide:
"What deed have you done worthy praise?
What orphan blesses, widow prays,
To lengthen out your life one year?
If you will now add deeds to prayer—
Your neighbours want, whilst you abound—
Give me a cheque—five hundred pound."
"Where is the haste?" the sick man whines;
"Who knows—who knows what Heaven designs:
That sum, and more, are in my will;
Perhaps I may recover still."
"Fool!" said the angel: "it is plain
That your great happiness was gain;
And after death would fain atone
By giving what is not your own."
"Whilst there is life, there's hope!" he cried;
"Then why such haste?"—he spoke, and died.
FABLE XXVIII.
The Persian, the Sun, and the Cloud.
Lives there a bard for genius famed
Whom Envy's tongue hath not declaimed?
Her hissing snakes proclaim her spite;
She summons up the fiends of night;
Hatred and malice by her stand,
And prompt to do what she command.
As prostrate to the orb of day
A Persian, invocating, lay:
"Parent of light, whose rays dispense
The various gifts of Providence,
Accept our praise, accept our prayer,
Smile on our fields, and bless our year."
A cloud passed by—a voice aloud,
Like Envy's, issued from that cloud: