THE FROG THAT WISHED TO BE AS BIG AS THE OX.
THE tenant of a bog,
An envious little frog
Not bigger than an egg,
A stately bullock spies,
And, smitten with his size,
Attempts to be as big.
With earnestness and pains
She stretches, swells, and strains,
"Sir Frog, look here! see me!
Is this enough?" "No, no."
"Well, then, is this?" "Poh! poh!
Enough! you don't begin to be."
And thus the reptile sits,
Enlarging till she splits.
The world is full of folks
Of just such wisdom:
The lordly dome provokes
The cit to build his dome;
And, really, there is no telling
How much great men set little ones a swelling.
THE CITY RAT AND THE COUNTRY RAT.
A CITY rat, one night,
Did, with a civil stoop,
A country rat invite
To end a turtle soup.
Upon a Turkey carpet
They found the table spread,
And sure I need not harp it
How well the fellows fed.
The entertainment was
A truly noble one;
But some unlucky cause
Disturbed it when begun.
It was a slight rat-tat
That put their joys to rout:
Out ran the city rat;
His guest, too, scampered out.
Our rats but fairly quit,
The fearful knocking ceased. "Return we," cried the cit,
"To finish there our feast."
"No," said the rustic rat;
"To-morrow dine with me.
I'm not offended at
Your feast so grand and free,
"For I've no fare resembling;
But then I eat at leisure,
And would not swap for pleasure
So mixed with fear and trembling."
THE FOX AND STORK.
OLD Mister Fox was at expense, one day,
To dine old Mistress Stork.
The fare was light, was nothing, sooth to say,
Requiring knife and fork.
That sly old gentleman, the dinner-giver,
Was, you must understand, a frugal liver.
This once, at least, the total matter
Was thinnish soup served on a platter,
For madam's slender beak a fruitless puzzle,
Till all had passed the fox's lapping muzzle.
But, little relishing his laughter,
Old gossip Stork, some few days after,
Returned his Foxship's invitation.
Without a moment's hesitation,
He said he'd go, for he must own he
Ne'er stood with friends for ceremony.
And so, precisely at the hour,
He hied him to the lady's bower;
Where, praising her politeness,
He finds her dinner right nice.
Its punctuality and plenty,
Its viands, cut in mouthfuls dainty,
Its fragrant smell, were powerful to excite,
Had there been need, his foxish appetite.
But now the dame, to torture him,
Such wit was in her,
Served up her dinner
In vases made so tall and slim,
They let their owner's beak pass in and out,
But not, by any means, the fox's snout!
All arts without avail,
With drooping head and tail,
As ought a fox a fowl had cheated,
The hungry guest at last retreated.
Ye knaves, for you is this recital,
You'll often meet Dame Stork's requital.
THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE.
To win a race, the swiftness of a dart
Availeth not without a timely start.
The hare and tortoise are my witnesses.
Said tortoise to the swiftest thing that is,
"I'll bet that you'll not reach so soon as I
The tree on yonder hill we spy."
"So soon! Why, madam, are you frantic?" Replied the creature, with an antic;
"Pray take, your senses to restore,
A grain or two of hellebore."
"Say," said the tortoise, "what you will;
I dare you to the wager still."
"Twas done; the stakes were paid,
And near the goal tree laid,
Of what, is not a question for this place,
Nor who it was that judged the race.
Our hare had scarce five jumps to make,
Of such as he is wont to take,
When, starting just before their beaks,
He leaves the hounds at leisure,
Thence till the kalends of the Greeks,
The sterile heath to measure.
Thus having time to browse and doze,
And list which way the zephyr blows,
He makes himself content to wait,
And let the tortoise go her gait
In solemn, senatorial state.
She starts; she moils on, modestly and lowly,
And with a prudent wisdom hastens slowly;
But he, meanwhile, the victory despises,
Thinks lightly of such prizes,
Believes it for his honor
To take late start and gain upon her.
So, feeding, sitting at his ease,
He meditates of what you please,
Till his antagonist he sees
Approach the goal; then starts,
Away like lightning darts:
But vainly does he run;
The race is by the tortoise won.
Cries she, "My senses do I lack?
What boots your boasted swiftness now?
You're beat! and yet, you must allow,
I bore my house upon my back."
THE LITTLE FISH AND THE FISHER.
A LITTLE fish will grow,
If life be spared, a great;
But yet to let him go,
And for his growing wait,
May not be very wise,
As 'tis not sure your bait
Will catch him when of size.
Upon a river bank, a fisher took
A tiny troutling from his hook.
Said he, ""Twill serve to count, at least,
As the beginning of my feast;
And so I'll put it with the rest."
This little fish, thus caught,
His clemency besought.
"What will your honor do with me? I'm not a mouthful, as you see.
Pray let me grow to be a trout,
And then come here and fish me out.
Some alderman, who likes things nice,
Will buy me then at any price.
But now, a hundred such you'll have to fish,
To make a single good-for-nothing dish."
"Well, well, be it so," replied the fisher,
"My little fish, who play the preacher,
The frying-pan must be your lot,
Although, no doubt, you like it not:
I fry the fry that can be got."
In some things, men of sense
Prefer the present to the future tense.
THE HEN WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS.
How avarice loseth all,
By striving all to gain,
I need no witness call
But him whose thrifty hen,
As by the fable we are told,
Laid every day an egg of gold.
"She hath a treasure in her body,"
Bethinks the avaricious noddy.
He kills and opens, - vexed to find
All things like hens of common kind. Thus spoiled the source of all his riches, To misers he a lesson teaches.
In these last changes of the moon,
How often doth one see
Men made as poor as he
By force of getting rich too soon!
DEATH AND THE WOODCUTTER.
A POOR Woodcutter, covered with green boughs,
Under the fagot's weight and his own age
Groaning and bent, ending his weary stage,
Was struggling homeward to his smoky hut.
At last, worn out with labor and with pain,
Letting his fagot down, he thinks again.
What little pleasure he has had in life.
Is there so cursed a wretch in all the strife?
No bread sometimes, and never any rest;
With taxes, soldiers, children, and a wife,
Creditors, forced toil oppressed,
He is the picture of a man unblessed.
He cries for Death. Death comes straightway,
And asks why he was called upon.
"Help me," the poor man says, “I pray,
To lift this wood, then I'll begone."
Death comes to end our woes.
But who called him? Not I!
The motto of mankind still goes:
We'll suffer all, sooner than die.
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