JOHN GAY

  The Shepherd’s Dog and the Wolf

  A Wolf, with hunger fierce and bold,
    Ravag’d the plains, and thinn’d the fold: 
  Deep in the wood secure he lay,
  The thefts of night regal’d the day. 
  In vain the shepherd’s wakeful care
  Had spread the toils, and watch’d the snare;
  In vain the Dog pursued his pace,
  The fleeter robber mock’d the chase. 
  As Lightfoot rang’d the forest round,
  By chance his foe’s retreat he found. 
  “Let us a while the war suspend,
  And reason as from friend to friend.” 
    “A truce?” replies the Wolf. “’Tis done.” 
  The Dog the parley thus begun. 
    “How can that strong intrepid mind
  Attack a weak defenceless kind? 
  Those jaws should prey on nobler food,
  And drink the boar’s and lion’s blood,
  Great souls with generous pity melt,
  Which coward tyrants never felt. 
  How harmless is our fleecy care! 
  Be brave, and let thy mercy spare.” 
    “Friend,” says the Wolf, “the matter weigh;
  Nature designed us beasts of prey;
  As such, when hunger finds a treat,
  ’Tis necessary Wolves should eat. 
  If mindful of the bleating weal,
  Thy bosom burn with real zeal,
  Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech;
  To him repeat the moving speech: 
  A Wolf eats sheep but now and then;
  Ten thousands are devoured by men. 
  An open foe may prove a curse,
  But a pretended friend is worse.”

      JOHN GAY

  The Rat-catcher and Cats

  The rats by night such mischief did,
  Betty was ev’ry morning chid. 
  They undermin’d whole sides of bacon,
  Her cheese was sapp’d, her tarts were taken. 
  Her pasties, fenc’d with thickest paste,
  Were all demolish’d, and laid waste. 
  She curs’d the cat for want of duty,
  Who left her foes a constant booty. 
  An Engineer, of noted skill,
  Engag’d to stop the growing ill. 
  From room to room he now surveys
  Their haunts, their works, their secret ways;
  Finds where they ’scape an ambuscade. 
  And whence the nightly sally’s made. 
  An envious Cat from place to place,
  Unseen, attends his silent pace. 
  She saw, that if his trade went on,
  The purring race must be undone;
  So, secretly removes his baits,
  And ev’ry stratagem defeats. 
    Again he sets the poisoned toils,
  And Puss again the labour foils. 
    “What foe, to frustrate my designs,
  My schemes thus nightly countermines?”
  Incens’d, he cries:  “This very hour
  This wretch shall bleed beneath my power.” 
    So said, a ponderous trap he brought,
  And in the fact poor Puss was caught. 
    “Smuggler,” says he, “thou shalt be made
  A victim to our loss of trade.” 
    The captive Cat, with piteous mews,
  For pardon, life, and freedom sues. 
  “A sister of the science spare;