she's a bawd to gain, and holds the door.

Your care about your banks infers a fear 860
Of threatening floods and inundations near;
If so, a just reprise would only be
Of what the land usurp'd upon the sea;
And all your jealousies but serve to show
Your ground is, like your neighbour-nation, low.
To intrench in what you grant unrighteous laws,
Is to distrust the justice of your cause;
And argues that the true religion lies
In those weak adversaries you despise.

Tyrannic force is that which least you fear; 700
The sound is frightful in a Christian's ear:
Avert it, Heaven! nor let that plague be sent
To us from the dispeopled continent.

But piety commands me to refrain;
Those prayers are needless in this monarch's reign.
Behold! how he protects your friends oppress'd,
Receives the banish'd, succours the distress'd:
Behold, for you may read an honest open breast.
He stands in day-light, and disdains to hide
An act, to which by honour he is tied, 880
A generous, laudable, and kingly pride.
Your Test he would repeal, his peers restore;
This when he says he means, he means no more.

Well, said the Panther, I believe him just,
And yet----
And yet, 'tis but because you must;
You would be trusted, but you would not trust.
The Hind thus briefly; and disdain'd to enlarge
On power of kings, and their superior charge,
As Heaven's trustees before the people's choice: 890
Though sure the Panther did not much rejoice
To hear those echoes given of her once loyal voice.

The matron woo'd her kindness to the last,
But could not win; her hour of grace was past.
Whom, thus persisting, when she could not bring
To leave the Wolf, and to believe her king,
She gave her up, and fairly wish'd her joy
Of her late treaty with her new ally:
Which well she hoped would more successful prove,
Than was the Pigeon's and the Buzzard's love. 900
The Panther ask'd what concord there could be
Betwixt two kinds whose natures disagree?
The dame replied: 'Tis sung in every street,
The common chat of gossips when they meet;
But, since unheard by you, 'tis worth your while
To take a wholesome tale, though told in homely style.

A plain good man,[130] whose name is understood
(So few deserve the name of plain and good),
Of three