A partnership with men in power We cannot build upon an hour. This Fable proves the fact too true: An Heifer, Goat, and harmless Ewe, Were with the Lion as allies, To raise in desert woods supplies. There, when they jointly had the luck To take a most enormous buck, The Lion first the parts disposed, And then his royal will disclosed. “The first, as Lion hight, I crave; The next you yield to me, as brave; The third is my peculiar due, As being stronger far than you; The fourth you likewise will renounce, For him that touches, I shall trounce.” Thus rank unrighteousness and force Seized all the prey without remorse. VI. THE FROGS AND SUN. When Esop saw, with inward grief, The nuptials of a neighb’ring thief, He thus his narrative begun: Of old ’twas rumor’d that the Sun Would take a wife: with hideous cries The quer’lous Frogs alarm’d the skies. Moved at their murmurs, Jove inquired What was the thing that they desired? When thus a tenant of the lake, In terror, for his brethren spake: “Ev’n now one Sun too much is found, And dries up all the pools around, Till we thy creatures perish here; But oh, how dreadfully severe, Should he at length be made a sire, And propagate a race of fire!” VII. THE FOX AND THE TRAGIC MASK. A Fox beheld a Mask-- “O rare The headpiece, if but brains were there!” This holds--whene’er the Fates dispense Pomp, pow’r, and everything but sense. VIII. THE WOLF AND CRANE. Who for his merit seeks a price From men of violence and vice, Is twice a fool--first so declared, As for the worthless he has cared; Then after all, his honest aim Must end in punishment and shame. A bone the Wolf devour’d in haste, Stuck in his greedy throat so fast, That, tortured with the pain, he roar’d, And ev’ry beast around implored, That who a remedy could find Should have a premium to his mind. A Crane was wrought upon to trust His oath at length--and down she thrust Her neck into his throat impure, And so perform’d a desp’rate cure. At which, when she desired her fee, “You base, ungrateful minx,” says he, “Whom I so kind forbore to kill, And now, forsooth, you’d bring your bill!” IX. THE HARE AND THE SPARROW. Still to give cautions, as a friend, And not one’s own affairs attend, Is but impertinent and vain, As these few verses will explain. A Sparrow taunted at a Hare Caught by an eagle high in air, And screaming loud-- “Where now,” says she, “Is your renown’d velocity? Why loiter’d your much boasted speed?” Just as she spake, an hungry glede Did on th’ injurious railer fall, Nor could her cries avail at all. The Hare, with its expiring breath, Thus said: “See comfort ev’n in death! She that derided my distress Must now deplore her own no less.” X. THE WOLF AND FOX, WITH THE APE FOR JUDGE.