Budge off together to the land of mists. But I've digress'd. Return we now, bethinking Of our poor star-man, whom we left a drinking. Besides the folly of his lying trade, This man the type may well be made Of those who at chimeras stare When they should mind the things that are. [19] Aesop. Diogenes Laertius tells the story of this fable of Thales of Miletus. "It is said that once he (Thales) was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself. On which the old woman said to him--'Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that thou shalt understand what is in heaven?'"--_Diogenes Laertius, Bohn's edition._ XIV.--THE HARE AND THE FROGS.[20] Once in his bed deep mused the hare, (What else but muse could he do there?) And soon by gloom was much afflicted;-- To gloom the creature's much addicted. 'Alas! these constitutions nervous,' He cried, 'how wretchedly they serve us! We timid people, by their action, Can't eat nor sleep with satisfaction; We can't enjoy a pleasure single, But with some misery it must mingle. Myself, for one, am forced by cursed fear To sleep with open eye as well as ear. "Correct yourself," says some adviser. Grows fear, by such advice, the wiser? Indeed, I well enough descry That men have fear, as well as I.' With such revolving thoughts our hare Kept watch in soul-consuming care. A passing shade, or leaflet's quiver Would give his blood a boiling fever. Full soon, his melancholy soul Aroused from dreaming doze By noise too slight for foes, He scuds in haste to reach his hole. He pass'd a pond; and from its border bogs, Plunge after plunge, in leap'd the timid frogs, 'Aha! I do to them, I see,' He cried, 'what others do to me. The sight of even me, a hare, Sufficeth some, I find, to scare. And here, the terror of my tramp Hath put to rout, it seems, a camp. The trembling fools! they take me for The very thunderbolt of war! I see, the coward never skulk'd a foe That might not scare a coward still below.' [20] Aesop. XV.--THE COCK AND THE FOX.[21]