!
Ingratitude sticks to his mind,--
A vice inherent to the kind.
The sheep, that clothes him with her wool,
Dies at the shambles--butcher's school;
The honey-bees with waxen combs
Are slain by hives and hecatombs;
And the sagacious goose, who gives
The plume whereby he writes and lives,
And as a guerdon for its use
He cuts the quill and eats the goose.
Avoid the monster: where he roams
He desolates our raided homes;
And where such acts and deeds are boasted,
I hear we pheasants all are roasted."

FABLE XVI.

PIN AND NEEDLE.

A pin which long had done its duty,
Attendant on a reigning beauty,--
Had held her muffler, fixed her hair,
And made its mistress _debonnaire_,--
Now near her heart in honour placed,
Now banished to the rear disgraced;
From whence, as partners of her shame,
She saw the lovers served the same.
From whence, thro' various turns of life,
She saw its comforts and its strife:
With tailors warm, with beggars cold,
Or clutched within a miser's hold.
His maxim racked her wearied ear:
"A pin a day's a groat a year."
Restored to freedom by the proctor,
She paid some visits with a doctor;
She pinned a bandage that was crossed,
And thence, at Gresham Hall, was lost.
Charmed with its wonders, she admires,
And now of this, now that inquires--
'Twas plain, in noticing her mind,
She was of virtuoso kind.

"What's this thing in this box, dear sir?"

"A needle," said the interpreter.

"A needle shut up in a box?
Good gracious me, why sure it locks!
And why is it beside that flint?
I could give her now a good hint:
If she were handed to a sempstress,
She would hem more and she would clem less."

"Pin!" said the needle, "cease to blunder:
Stupid alike your hints and wonder.
This is a loadstone, and its virtue--
Though insufficient to convert you--
Makes me a magnet; and afar
True am I to my polar star.
The pilot leaves the doubtful skies,
And trusts to me with watchful eyes;
By me the distant world is known,
And both the Indies made our own.
I am the friend and guide of sailors,
And you of sempstresses and tailors."

FABLE XVII.

SHEPHERD'S DOG AND WOLF.

A hungry wolf had thinned the fold,
Safely he refuged on the wold;