On this round world, I know, full well, My brain alone has reason's rays." Now, Iris, you will recollect, 'Twas taught us by that older science, On which we used to have reliance, That when beasts think, they don't reflect. Descartes goes farther, and maintains That beasts are quite devoid of brains. This you believe with ease, and so Can I, until to woods I go, Just when, perchance, some motley crew, With dogs and horns, a stag pursue. In vain it doubles, and confounds. With many a devious turn, the hounds. At length this ancient stag of ten, Discovering all its efforts vain, And almost wholly worn and spent, Drives by main force, from covert near, Athwart the dogs, some younger deer, To tempt them off, by fresher scent. What reasoning here the beast displays! Its backward tracks on beaten ways, Its numerous schemes its scent to smother, And skill, at length, to thrust another [Illustration: THE TWO RATS, THE FOX, AND THE EGG.] On danger almost at its feet, For some great party chief were meet; And worthy of some better fate Than death from dogs insatiate. 'Tis thus the red-legged partridge, sprung By pointer, strives to save her young, As yet unfledged. With piteous cries, And lagging wing, she feigns to rise, Runs on, then halts, then hurries on again, And dog and hunter tempts across the plain; But when her nest is far enough behind, She laughs at both, and skims along the wind. 'Tis said that beings have been found, In distant lands, in northern climes, Who still in ignorance profound Are steeped, as in primeval times. But only of the men I speak, For there four-footed creatures break The force of streams by dams and ridges, And join opposing banks by bridges: Beams morticed well with beams, their toil Resists the stream's attempt to spoil; Each labourer with the other vies, And old ones guide young energies; Chief engineers the whole survey, And point out aught that goes astray. Pluto's well-ordered state could never Have vied with these amphibians clever.