A man who had no rivals in the love He bore himself, thought that he won the bell From all the world, and hated every glass That truths less palatable tried to tell. Living contented in the error, Of lying mirrors he'd a terror. Officious Fate, determined on a cure, Raised up, where'er he turned his eyes, Those silent counsellors that ladies prize. Mirrors old and mirrors newer; Mirrors in inns and mirrors in shops; Mirrors in pockets of all the fops; Mirrors in every lady's zone. What could our poor Narcissus do? He goes and hides him all alone In woods that one can scarce get through. No more the lying mirrors come, But past his new-found savage home A pure and limpid brook runs fair.-- He looks. His ancient foe is there! His angry eyes stare at the stream, He tries to fancy it a dream. Resolves to fly the odious place, and shun The image; yet, so fair the brook, he cannot run. My meaning is not hard to see; No one is from this failing free. The man who loved himself is just the Soul, The mirrors are the follies of all others. (Mirrors are faithful painters on the whole;) And you know well as I do, brothers, that the brook Is the wise "Maxim-book."[1] [1] Rochefoucauld's Maxims are the most extraordinary dissections of human selfishness ever made. FABLE XI. THE DRAGON WITH MANY HEADS, AND THE DRAGON WITH MANY TAILS. An Envoy of the Grand Signor (I can't say more) One day, before the Emperor's court, Vaunted, as some historians report, That his royal master had a force Outnumbering all the foot and horse The Kaiser could bring to the war. Then spoke a choleric attendant: "<i>Our</i> Prince has more than <i>one</i> dependant That keeps an army at his own expense." The Pasha (man of sense), Replied: "By rumour I'm aware What troops the great electors spare, And that reminds me, I am glad, Of an adventure I once had, Strange, and yet true. I'll tell it you. Once through a hedge the hundred heads I saw Of a huge Hydra show. My blood, turned ice, refused to flow: And yet I felt that neither fang nor claw Could more than scare me--for no head came near. There was no room. I cast off fear. While musing on this sight, Another Dragon came to light. Only one head this time; But tails too many to count up in rhyme. The fit again came on, Worse than the one just gone. The head creeps first, then follows tail by tail; Nothing can stop their road, nor yet assail; One clears the way for all the minor powers: The first's <i>your</i> Emperor's host, the second <i>ours</i>." [Illustration: THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.] FABLE XII. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.