FABLE IV.
THE DRONES AND THE BEE.
By a sense of their bad reputation molested,
The Drones in grave council assembled one day;
And various measures each idler suggested,
To wash of their sloth the sad stigma away.
No other expedient well could they see,
In the eyes of all animals better to stand—
Though lazy and stupid as well they could be—
Than to try, at the making of honey, their hand.
But the labor proved very distasteful, indeed;
The workmen, a rude, inexperienced crew;
They began to be doubtful if they should succeed
Very well in attaining the object in view.
To get rid of their trouble they fain would contrive,
By interring in state an old Bee that had died—
A notable Bee of a neighboring hive,
Of all her companions the model and pride.
With pomp and with honor they lauded her name,
In funeral obsequies, brilliant and grand;
Panegyrics immortal they buzzed to her fame,
For the whitest of wax and honey so bland.
This done, with much self-satisfaction they stop.
But a Bee said in scorn, "Is this all you can do?
Of the honey I make, not one single drop
Would I give for the fuss of your beggarly crew."
How many there are, who their emptiness mask,
By quoting wise words from the lips of the dead!
But with all their pretence, did they ever, I ask,
Produce any such from their own shallow head?
FABLE V.
THE TWO PARROTS AND THE MAGPIE.
A dame from St. Domingo
Brought with her Parrots twain.
Now this island is half Gallic,
Half owns the flag of Spain;
Thus, in two different languages,
The Parrots talked amain,
Till the gallery where their cages hung
Discordant was as Babylon.
Soon the French and the Castilian
They mixed up in such a bother
That, in the end, no soul could tell
If it were one or 't other.
The French Parrot from the Spaniard
Took a contribution small;
While the Spanish bird changed nigh each word
For the idiom of Gaul.
Their mistress parts the babblers—
And the Frenchman kept not long
The phrases he had borrowed
From less fashionable tongue.
The other still refuses
His jargon to give over;
But new merit rather chooses
In this hotchpotch to discover—
Exulting that he thus can vary
The range of his vocabulary.
In mongrel French, one day,
He eagerly begged after
The scrapings of the pot;
With hearty roar of laughter,
From balcony across the way,
A Magpie shouted out
At the folly of the lout.
The Parrot answered pertly,
As with argument conclusive,—
"You are nothing but a Purist,
Of taste foolishly exclusive."—?
"Thanks for the compliment," quoth Magpie, curtly.