God’s works are good.  This truth to prove
  Around the world I need not move;
    I do it by the nearest Pumpkin. 
  “This fruit so large, on vine so small,”
    Surveying once, exclaim’d a bumpkin—­
  “What could He mean who made us all? 
  He’s left this Pumpkin out of place. 
  If I had order’d in the case,
  Upon that oak it should have hung——­
  A noble fruit as ever swung
  To grace a tree so firm and strong. 
  Indeed, it was a great mistake,
      As this discovery teaches,
  That I myself did not partake
  His counsels whom my curate preaches. 
  All things had then in order come;
    This Acorn, for example,
      Not bigger than my thumb,
  Had not disgraced a tree so ample. 
  The more I think, the more I wonder
  To see outraged proportion’s laws,
  And that without the slightest cause;
  God surely made an awkward blunder.” 
  With such reflections proudly fraught,
  Our sage grew tired of mighty thought,
  And threw himself on Nature’s lap,
  Beneath an oak, to take his nap. 
  Plump on his nose, by lucky hap,
  An Acorn fell:  he waked, and in
  The scarf he wore beneath his chin,
  He found the cause of such a bruise
  As made him different language use. 
  “Oh!  Oh!” he cried; “I bleed!  I bleed! 
  And this is what has done the deed! 
  But, truly, what had been my fate,
  Had this had half a Pumpkin’s weight! 
  I see that God had reasons good,
  And all His works were understood.” 
  Thus home he went in humbler mood.

  The Cat and the Fox

  The Cat and Fox, when saints were all the rage
  Together went upon pilgrimage. 
  Our Pilgrims, as a thing of course,
  Disputed till their throats were hoarse. 
    Then, dropping to a lower tone,
  They talk’d of this, and talk’d of that,
  Till Reynard whisper’d to the Cat,
    “You think yourself a knowing one: 
  How many cunning tricks have you? 
  For I’ve a hundred, old and new,
  All ready in my haversack.” 
  The Cat replied, “I do not lack,
    Though with but one provided;
  And, truth to honour, for that matter,
  I hold it than a thousand better.” 
    In fresh dispute they sided;
  And loudly were they at it, when
  Approach’d a mob of dogs and men. 
  “Now,” said the Cat, “your tricks ransack,
  And put your cunning brains to rack,
  One life to save; I’ll show you mine—­
  A trick, you see, for saving nine.” 
  With that, she climb’d a lofty pine. 
  The Fox his hundred ruses tried,
    And yet no safety found. 
  A hundred times he falsified. 
    The nose of every hound
  Was here, and there, and everywhere,
    Above, and under ground;
  But yet to stop he did not dare,
  Pent in a hole, it was no joke,
  To meet the terriers or the smoke. 
  So, leaping into upper air,
  He met two dogs, that choked him there.