“How did my music-piece go off?”

“So well—were not thy courage known,

Their terror had been all my own!”

[XII.] THE STAG AT THE FOUNTAIN.

Full often what you now despise

Proves better than the things you prize;

Let Esop’s narrative decide:

A Stag beheld, with conscious pride,

(As at the fountain-head he stood)

His image in the silver flood,