To show to all your kindness, it behoves: There's none so small but you his aid may need. I quote two fables for this weighty creed, Which either of them fully proves. From underneath the sward...
The lioness had lost her young; A hunter stole it from the vale; The forests and the mountains rung Responsive to her hideous wail. Nor night, nor charms of sweet repose,...
Mamma lioness had lost one of her cubs. Some hunter had made away with it, and the poor unfortunate mother roared out her wailings to such an extent that all the inhabitants of the forest were seriously disturbed. The spells of...
The lion, for his kingdom's sake, In morals would some lessons take, And therefore call'd, one summer's day, The monkey, master of the arts, An animal of brilliant parts, To hear what he could say....
King Lion, thinking that he would govern better if he took a few lessons in moral philosophy, had a monkey brought to him one fine day who was a master of arts in the monkey tribe. The first lesson he gave was as follows: -...
A Lion, old, and impotent with gout, Would have some cure for age found out. This king, from every species, - Call'd to his aid the leeches. They came, from quacks without degree...
A lion, old, and impotent with gout, Would have some cure for age found out. Impossibilities, on all occasions, With kings, are rank abominations. This king, from every species, -...
A little fish will grow, If life be spared, a great; But yet to let him go, And for his growing wait, May not be very wise, As 'tis not sure your bait Will catch him when of size....
The wise, sometimes, as lobsters do, To gain their ends back foremost go. It is the rower's art; and those Commanders who mislead their foes, Do often seem to aim their sight...
Once there was a man who loved himself very much, and who permitted himself no rivals in that love. He thought his face and figure the handsomest in all the world. Anything in the shape of a mirror that could show him his own l...
'You villain!' cried a man who found An adder coil'd upon the ground, 'To do a very grateful deed For all the world, I shall proceed.' On this the animal perverse (I mean the snake;...
Impertinent, we tease and weary Heaven With prayers which would insult mere mortals even. 'Twould seem that not a god in all the skies From our affairs must ever turn his eyes,...
A pagan kept a god of wood, - A sort that never hears, Though furnish'd well with ears, - From which he hoped for wondrous good. The idol cost the board of three; So much enrich'd was he...
A man of middle age, whose hair Was bordering on the grey, Began to turn his thoughts and care The matrimonial way. By virtue of his ready, A store of choices had he...
Who joins not with his restless race To give Dame Fortune eager chase? O, had I but some lofty perch, From which to view the panting crowd Of care-worn dreamers, poor and proud,...
I would I were in some spot whence I could watch the eager crowds rushing from kingdom to kingdom in their vain chase after the daughter of Chance! ...
Perhaps, had I but shown due loyalty, This book would have begun with royalty, Of which, in certain points of view, Boss[2] Belly is the image true,...
Four voyagers to parts unknown, On shore, not far from naked, thrown By furious waves, - a merchant, now undone, A noble, shepherd, and a monarch's son, - Brought to the lot of Belisarius,[2]...
A pine was by a woodman fell'd, Which ancient, huge, and hollow tree An owl had for his palace held - A bird the Fates had kept in fee, Interpreter to such as we. Within the caverns of the pine,...