FABLE XXII.—XXIII.
THE OWL AND LAMP,
AND
THE DOGS AND THE RAGMAN.
There is a set of dastard knaves,
Vile critics, that will wait to make attack
On authors till their victims are—alack!—
All safe and quiet in their graves;
For living men, they know, might answer back.
To this same purpose, once a little lay
My old grandmother sang to me,
Recounting how a wandering Owl, one day,
Into a convent chanced to make her way;—
I'm wrong—by day it could not be.
For, without doubt, the evening's sun had set
Below the horizon long ago.
Now, as she flew along, our Owl she met
A Lamp or Lanthorn in the passage set—
Which of the two I do not know.
Turning reluctant back, in angry spite,
Thus spoke she out her mind:
"Ah, Lamp! with what unspeakable delight
I'd suck the oil all out of you this night,
But that my eyes you blind!
But if I cannot now,
Since you are such a blaze of dazzling light,—
If I should find you, on some other night,
Unlighted, then, I shall be ready quite
To make a feast, I vow."
Denounced though I may be,
By coward critics, that I here expose—
Because I dare their meanness to disclose;
Their portrait they shall see
In yet another fable ere I close.
Beating an old dust pan,
A Ragman stood, when, barking furiously
As Cerberus, two Dogs, eying him curiously,
With vagabondish man,
As is their wont—howled savagely.
To them a tall Greyhound
Said, "Let the wretch alone,—for he is one
Who from dead dogs will strip the reeking skin
To sell for bread. No honor can you win
On him—for, I'll be bound,
From living dogs the conscious rogue will run."