* * * * *

FABLE V.

THE WILD BOAR AND THE RAM.

  Against an elm a sheep was tied,
  The butcher’s knife in blood was dyed: 
  The patient flock in silent fright,
  From far beheld the horrid sight. 
  A savage boar, who near them stood,
  Thus mocked to scorn the fleecy brood. 
     ’All cowards should be served like you. 
  See, see, your murderer is in view: 
  With purple hands and reeking knife,
  He strips the skin yet warm with life;
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  Your quartered sires, your bleeding dams,
  The dying bleat of harmless lambs,
  Call for revenge.  O stupid race! 
  The heart that wants revenge is base.’ 
     ‘I grant.’ an ancient ram replies,
  ’We bear no terror in our eyes;
  Yet think us not of soul so tame,
  Which no repeated wrongs inflame;
  Insensible of every ill,
  Because we want thy tusks to kill.
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  Know, those who violence pursue,
  Give to themselves the vengeance due;
  For in these massacres we find
  The two chief plagues that waste mankind: 
  Our skin supplies the wrangling bar,
  It wakes their slumbering sons to war;
  And well revenge may rest contented,
  Since drums and parchment were invented.’

* * * * *

FABLE VI.

THE MISER AND PLUTUS.

  The wind was high, the window shakes,
  With sudden start the miser wakes;
  Along the silent room he stalks;
  Looks back, and trembles as he walks! 
  Each lock and every bolt he tries,
  In every creek and corner prys,
  Then opes the chest with treasure stored,
  And stands in rapture o’er his hoard;
  But, now with sudden qualms possess’d,
  He wrings his hands, he beats his breast.
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  By conscience stung, he wildly stares;
  And thus his guilty soul declares: 
     ’Had the deep earth her stores confined,
  This heart had known sweet peace of mind. 
  But virtue’s sold.  Good gods, what price
  Can recompense the pangs of vice! 
  O bane of good! seducing cheat! 
  Can man, weak man, thy power defeat? 
  Gold banished honour from the mind,
  And only left the name behind;
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  Gold sowed the world with every ill;
  Gold taught the murderer’s sword to kill: 
  ’Twas gold instructed coward hearts,
  In treachery’s more pernicious arts. 
  Who can recount the mischiefs o’er? 
  Virtue resides on earth no more!’
  He spoke, and sighed.  In angry mood,
  Plutus, his god, before him stood. 
  The miser, trembling, locked his chest;
  The vision frowned, and thus address’d: 
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     ’Whence is this vile ungrateful rant? 
  Each sordid rascal’s daily cant. 
  Did I, base wretch, corrupt mankind?