A rat, of quite the smallest size, Fix'd on an elephant his eyes, And jeer'd the beast of high descent Because his feet so slowly went. Upon his back, three stories high, There sat, beneath a canopy,...
One's own importance to enhance, Inspirited by self-esteem, Is quite a common thing in France; A French disease it well might seem. The strutting cavaliers of Spain Are in another manner vain....
A country rat, of little brains, Grown weary of inglorious rest, Left home with all its straws and grains, Resolved to know beyond his nest. When peeping through the nearest fence,...
I am the bard known far and wide, The travell'd rat-catcher beside; A man most needful to this town, So glorious through its old renown. However many rats I see, How many weasels there may be,...
The rats by night the mischief did, And Betty every morn was chid. The cheese was nibbled, tarts were taken, And purloined were the eggs and bacon; And Betty cursed the cat, whose duty...
The sage Levantines have a tale About a rat that weary grew Of all the cares which life assail, And to a Holland cheese withdrew. His solitude was there profound, Extending through his world so round....
The ancients had a legend which told of a certain rat who, weary of the anxieties of this world, retired to a cheese, therein to live in peace. Profound solitude reigned around the hermit. He worked so hard with his feet and hi...
In shards the sylvan vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim, Choked fountain of the sun! The spider in the laurel spins, The weed exiles the flower:...
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,...
There sat a raven 'mid the pines so dark, The pines so silent and so dark at morn A ragged bird with feathers rough and torn, Whetting his grimy beak upon the bark,...
Mr. Raven was perched upon a limb, And Reynard the Fox looked up at him; For the Raven held in his great big beak A morsel the Fox would go far to seek.
King's daughter sitting in tower so high, Fair summer is on many a shield. Why weepest thou as the clouds go by? Fair sing the swans 'twixt firth and field. Why weepest thou in the window-seat...
Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken, And but the ghosts of homes to us remain, And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token From friend to friend of an unspoken pain. ...
My Laura, your rebukes are prudish; For although flattery is rudish, Yet deference, not more than just, May be received without disgust. Am I a privilege denied...
'Build me my tomb,' the Raven said, 'Within the dark yew-tree, So in the Autumn yewberries Sad lamps may burn for me. Summon the haunted beetle, From twilight bud and bloom,...
A temple I reserved you in my rhyme: It might not be completed but with time. Already its endurance I had grounded Upon this charming art, divinely founded;...
An Eagle swooped from out the sky, And carried off a sheep. A Raven seeing him, said: "I Could do that too if I should try. His meal comes mighty cheap."
The bird of Jove bore off a mutton, A raven being witness. That weaker bird, but equal glutton, Not doubting of his fitness To do the same with ease, And bent his taste to please,...