A Wolf, whose gettings from the flocks
Began to be but few,
Bethought himself to play the fox
In character quite new.
A Shepherd's hat and coat he took,
A cudgel for a crook,
Nor e'en the pipe forgot:
And more to seem what he was not,
Himself upon his hat he wrote,
"I'm Willie, shepherd of these sheep."
His person thus complete,
His crook in upraised feet,
The impostor Willie stole upon the keep.
The proper Willie, on the grass asleep,
Slept there, indeed, profoundly,
His dog and pipe slept, also soundly;
His drowsy sheep around lay.
As for the greatest number,
Much bless'd the hypocrite their slumber
And hoped to drive away the flock,
Could he the Shepherd's voice but mock.
He thought undoubtedly he could.
He tried: the tone in which he spoke,
Loud echoing from the wood,
The plot and slumber broke;
Sheep, dog, and man awoke.
The Wolf, in sorry plight,
In hampering coat bedight,
Could neither run nor fight.
There's always leakage of deceit
Which makes it never safe to cheat,
Whoever is a Wolf had better
Keep clear of hypocritic fetter.
The Lion and the Ass Hunting
The King of animals, with royal grace,
Would celebrate his birthday in the chase.
Twas not with bow and arrows,
To slay some wretched sparrows;
The Lion hunts the wild boar of the wood,
The antlered deer and stags, the fat and good.
This time, the King, t' insure success,
Took for his aide-de-camp an Ass,
A creature of stentorian voice,
That felt much honoured by the choice.
The Lion hid him in a proper station,
And ordered him to bray, for his vocation,
Assured that his tempestuous cry
The boldest beasts would terrify,
And cause them from their lairs to fly.
And, sooth, the horrid noise the creature made
Did strike the tenants of the wood with dread;
And, as they headlong fled,
All fell within the Lion's ambuscade.
"Has not my service glorious
Made both of us victorious?"
Cried out the much-elated Ass.
"Yes," said the Lion; "bravely bray'd!
Had I not known yourself and race,
I should have been myself afraid!"
The Donkey, had he dared,
With anger would have flared
At this retort, though justly made;
For who could suffer boasts to pass
So ill-befitting to an Ass?
The Oak and the Reed
The Oak one day address'd the Reed:
"To you ungenerous indeed
Has nature been, my humble friend,
With weakness aye obliged to bend.
The smallest bird that flits in air
Is quite too much for you to bear;
The slightest wind that wreathes the lake
Your ever-trembling head doth shake.
The while, my towering form
Dares with the mountain top
The solar blaze to stop,
And wrestle with the storm.
What seems to you the blast of death,
To me is but a zephyr's breath.
Beneath my branches had you grown,
Less suffering would your life have known,
Unhappily you oftenest show
In open air your slender form,
Along the marshes wet and low,
That fringe the kingdom of the storm.
To you, declare I must,
Dame Nature seems unjust."
Then modestly replied the Reed:
"Your pity, sir, is kind indeed,
But wholly needless for my sake.
The wildest wind that ever blew
Is safe to me compared with you.
I bend, indeed, but never break.
Thus far, I own, the hurricane
Has beat your sturdy back in vain;
But wait the end." Just at the word,
The tempest's hollow voice was heard.
The North sent forth her fiercest child,
Dark, jagged, pitiless, and wild.
The Oak, erect, endured the blow;
The Reed bow'd gracefully and low.
But, gathering up its strength once more,
In greater fury than before,
The savage blast o'erthrew, at last,
That proud, old, sky-encircled head,
Whose feet entwined the empire of the dead!
The Bat and the Two Weasels
A blundering Bat once stuck her head
Into a wakeful Weasel's bed;
Whereat the mistress of the house,
A deadly foe of rats and mice,
Was making ready in a trice
To eat the stranger as a mouse.
"What! do you dare," she said, "to creep in
The very bed I sometimes sleep in,
Now, after all the provocation
I've suffered from your thievish nation?
It's plain to see you are a mouse,
That gnawing pest of every house,
Your special aim to do the cheese ill.
Ay, that you are, or I'm no Weasel."
"I beg your pardon," said the Bat;
"My kind is very far from that.
What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie?
Why, ma'am, I am a bird;
And, if you doubt my word,
Just see the wings with which I fly.
Long live the mice that cleave the sky!"
These reasons had so fair a show,
The Weasel let the creature go.
By some strange fancy led,
The same wise blunderhead,
But two or three days later,
Had chosen for her rest
Another Weasel's nest,
This last, of birds a special hater.
New peril brought this step absurd:
Without a moment's thought or puzzle,
Dame Weasel, oped her peaked muzzle
To eat th' intruder as a bird.
"Hold! do not wrong me," cried the Bat;
"I'm truly no such thing as that.
Your eyesight strange conclusions gathers.
What makes a bird, I pray? Its feathers.
I'm cousin of the mice and rats.
Great Jupiter confound the cats!"
The Bat, by such adroit replying,
Twice saved herself from dying.
And many a human stranger
Thus turns his coat in danger;
And sings, as suits, where'er he goes,
"God save the king!"—or "save his foes!"