Whose threats, voluminous and vast,

With all their verse and all their prose,

Can make but little on’t, God knows.

[XIX.] THE ANT AND THE FLY.

An Ant and Fly had sharp dispute

Which creature was of most repute;

When thus began the flaunting Fly:

“Are you so laudible as I?

I, ere the sacrifice is carved,

Precede the gods; first come, first served—