For art may err, but nature cannot miss. Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast, His second crowing the third hour confessed. Then turning, said to Partlet,--See, my dear, How lavish nature has adorned the year; How the pale primrose and blue violet spring, And birds essay their throats disused to sing: All these are ours; and I with pleasure see, Man strutting on two legs, and aping me; An unfledged creature, of a lumpish frame, Endued with fewer particles of flame: Our dame sits cowering o'er a kitchen fire, I draw fresh air, and nature's works admire; And even this day in more delight abound, Than, since I was an egg, I ever found.-- The time shall come, when Chanticleer shall wish His words unsaid, and hate his boasted bliss; The crested bird shall by experience know, } Jove made not him his masterpiece below, } And learn the latter end of joy is woe. } The vessel of his bliss to dregs is run, And Heaven will have him taste his other tun. Ye wise! draw near and hearken to my tale, Which proves that oft the proud by flattery fall; The legend is as true I undertake As Tristram is, and Launcelot of the lake; Which all our ladies in such reverence hold, As if in book of martyrs it were told. A Fox, full-fraught with seeming sanctity, That feared an oath, but, like the devil, would lie;[185] Who looked like Lent, and had the holy leer, And durst not sin before he said his prayer; This pious cheat, that never sucked the blood, } Nor chewed the flesh of lambs, but when he could, } Had passed three summers in the neighboring wood; } And musing long, whom next to circumvent, On Chanticleer his wicked fancy bent; And in his high imagination cast, By stratagem to gratify his taste. The plot contrived, before the break of day, Saint Reynard through the hedge had made his way; The pale was next, but proudly, with a bound, He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground; Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed Of coleworts he concealed his wily head; There sculked till afternoon, and watched his time, (As murderers use,) to perpetrate his crime. O hypocrite, ingenious to destroy! O traitor, worse than Sinon was to Troy! O vile subverter of the Gallic reign, More false than Gano was to Charlemaign![186] O Chanticleer, in an unhappy hour Didst thou forsake the safety of thy bower; Better for thee thou hadst believed thy dream, And not that day descended from the beam! But here the doctors eagerly dispute; Some hold predestination absolute; Some clerks maintain, that Heaven at first foresees, And in the virtue of foresight decrees. If this be so, then prescience binds the will, And mortals are not free to good or ill; For what he first foresaw, he must ordain, Or its eternal prescience may be vain; As bad for us as prescience had not been;