The Fables of La Fontaine | Page 3

pray,
beware!--
You who may choose the tempting share,--
Too eager
fishing for the pitcher
May ruin that which is far richer.'
Out ran the boys, their gifts to draw:
But eagerness was check'd with
awe,
How could there be a richer prize
Than solid gold beneath the
skies?
Or, if there could, how could it dwell
Within their own old,
mossy well?
Were questions which excited wonder,
And kept their
headlong av'rice under.
The golden cup each fear'd to choose,
Lest
he the better gift should lose;
And so resolved our prudent pair,
The
gifts in common they would share.
The well was open to the sky.

As o'er its curb they keenly pry,
It seems a tunnel piercing through,

From sky to sky, from blue to blue;
And, at its nether mouth, each
sees
A brace of their antipodes,
With earnest faces peering up,
As
if themselves might seek the cup.
'Ha!' said the elder, with a laugh,

'We need not share it by the half.
The mystery is clear to me;
That
richer gift to all is free.
Be only as that water true,

And then the
whole belongs to you.'
That truth itself was worth so much,
It cannot be supposed that such.

A pair of lads were satisfied;
And yet they were before they died.

But whether they fish'd up the gold
I'm sure I never have been told.

Thus much they learn'd, I take for granted,--
And that was what

their father wanted:--
If truth for wealth we sacrifice,
We throw
away the richer prize.
PARTY STRIFE.
Among the beasts a feud arose.
The lion, as the story goes,
Once on
a time laid down
His sceptre and his crown;
And in his stead the
beasts elected,
As often as it suited them,
A sort of king pro tem.,--

Some animal they much respected.
At first they all concurr'd.

The horse, the stag, the unicorn,
Were chosen each in turn;
And
then the noble bird
That looks undazzled at the sun.
But party strife
began to run
Through burrow, den, and herd.
Some beasts proposed
the patient ox,
And others named the cunning fox.
The quarrel came
to bites and knocks;
Nor was it duly settled
Till many a beast high-mettled
Had bought
an aching head,
Or, possibly, had bled.
The fox, as one might well
suppose,
At last above his rival rose,
But, truth to say, his reign was
bootless,
Of honour being rather fruitless.
All prudent beasts began to see
The throne a certain charm had lost,

And, won by strife, as it must be,
Was hardly worth the pains it
cost.
So when his majesty retired,
Few worthy beasts his seat
desired.
Especially now stood aloof
The wise of head, the swift of
hoof,
The beasts whose breasts were battle-proof.
It consequently
came to pass,
Not first, but, as we say, in fine,
For king the
creatures chose the ass--
He, for prime minister the swine.
'Tis thus that party spirit

Is prone to banish merit.
THE CAT AND THE THRUSH.
A thrush that sang one rustic ode
Once made a garden his abode,

And gave the owner such delight,
He grew a special favourite.

Indeed, his landlord did his best
To make him safe from every foe;


The ground about his lowly nest
Was undisturb'd by spade or hoe.

And yet his song was still the same;
It even grew somewhat more
tame.
At length Grimalkin spied the pet,
Resolved that he should
suffer yet,
And laid his plan of devastation
So as to save his
reputation;
For, in the house, from looks demure,
He pass'd for
honest, kind, and pure.
Professing search of mice and moles,
He
through the garden daily strolls,
And never seeks our thrush to catch;

But when his consort comes to hatch,
Just eats the young ones in a
batch.
The sadness of the pair bereaved
Their generous guardian
sorely grieved.
But yet it could not be believed
His faithful cat was
in the wrong,
Though so the thrush said in his song.
The cat was
therefore favour'd still
To walk the garden at his will;
And hence
the birds, to shun the pest,
Upon a pear-tree built their nest.
Though
there it cost them vastly more,
'Twas vastly better than before.
And
Gaffer Thrush directly found
His throat, when raised above the
ground,
Gave forth a softer, sweeter sound.
New tunes, moreover,
he had caught,
By perils and afflictions taught,
And found new
things to sing about:
New scenes had brought new talents out.
So,
while, improved beyond a doubt,
His own old song more clearly rang,

Far better than themselves he sang
The chants and trills of other
birds;
He even mock'd Grimalkin's words
With such delightful
humour that
He gain'd the Christian name of Cat.
Let Genius tell in verse and prose.
How much to praise and friends it
owes.

Good sense may be, as I suppose,
As much indebted to its
foes.

In 1844 Mr. Wright wrote the Preface to the first collected edition of
the works of the poet J. G. Whittier; and soon after he seems to have
become completely absorbed in politics, and in the mighty anti-slavery
struggle, which constituted the greater part of the politics of the United
States in those and many succeeding years. He became a journalist in
the anti-slavery cause; and, in 1850, he wrote a trenchant answer to Mr.

Carlyle's then just published "Latter Day Pamphlets." Later on, slavery
having been at length abolished, he appeared