before the race,
With age and long experience wise;
Around he cast his thoughtful eyes,
_40
And, to the murmurs of the train,
Thus spoke the Nestor of the plain:
'When I had health and strength, like you,
The toils of servitude I knew;
Now grateful man rewards my pains,
And gives me all these wide domains.
At will I crop the year's increase
My latter life is rest and peace.
I grant, to man we lend our pains,
And aid him to correct the plains.
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But doth not he divide the care,
Through all the labours of the year?
How many thousand structures rise,
To fence us from inclement skies!
For us he bears the sultry day,
And stores up all our winter's hay.
He sows, he reaps the harvest's gain;
We share the toil, and share the grain.
Since every creature was decreed
To aid each other's mutual need,
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Appease your discontented mind,
And act the part by heaven assigned.'
The tumult ceased. The colt submitted,
And, like his ancestors, was bitted.

* * * * *

FABLE XLIV.

THE HOUND AND THE HUNTSMAN.

Impertinence at first is borne
With heedless slight, or smiles of scorn;
Teased into wrath, what patience bears
The noisy fool who perseveres?
The morning wakes, the huntsman sounds,
At once rush forth the joyful hounds.
They seek the wood with eager pace,
Through bush, through brier, explore the chase.
Now scattered wide, they try the plain,
And snuff the dewy turf in vain.
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What care, what industry, what pains!
What universal silence reigns.
Ringwood, a dog of little fame,
Young, pert, and ignorant of game,
At once displays his babbling throat;
The pack, regardless of the note,
Pursue the scent; with louder strain
He still persists to vex the train.
The huntsman to the clamour flies;
The smacking lash he smartly plies.
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His ribs all welked, with howling tone
The puppy thus expressed his moan:
'I know the music of my tongue
Long since the pack with envy stung.
What will not spite? These bitter smarts
I owe to my superior parts.'
'When puppies prate,' the huntsman cried,
'They show both ignorance and pride:
Fools may our scorn, not envy raise,
For envy is a kind of praise.
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Had not thy forward noisy tongue
Proclaimed thee always in the wrong,
Thou might'st have mingled with the rest,
And ne'er thy foolish nose con