 | Miscellanies, in Verse and Prose |  |
A Fable.
A Surgeon, traversing the plain,
Across his road, with loosen'd rein,
A saddled Courser found;
The Rider with his hands display'd,
And neck awry, was near him laid,
Incumbent on the ground.
Our Artist, zealous to fulfil
A work of charity and skill,
To help the Wretch, alights:
This newly broken neck (he cry'd),
Tho' most confoundedly aside,
May yet be set to-rights.
Then, handling the distorted part,
The son of Pæan gave a start,
To hear his Patient snore:
But, when to stretch it he began,
It rous'd at once the sleeping Man;
For he but slept before.
No sooner waken'd, than aware
Of what was going forward, Spare
(He said) my shapeless neck;
Which, form'd by Nature thus awry,
(However it offends your eye)
To straiten, were to break.
Across his road, with loosen'd rein,
A saddled Courser found;
The Rider with his hands display'd,
And neck awry, was near him laid,
Incumbent on the ground.
Our Artist, zealous to fulfil
A work of charity and skill,
To help the Wretch, alights:
This newly broken neck (he cry'd),
Tho' most confoundedly aside,
May yet be set to-rights.
Then, handling the distorted part,
The son of Pæan gave a start,
To hear his Patient snore:
But, when to stretch it he began,
It rous'd at once the sleeping Man;
For he but slept before.
103
Of what was going forward, Spare
(He said) my shapeless neck;
Which, form'd by Nature thus awry,
(However it offends your eye)
To straiten, were to break.
Moral.
With visions of Utopia fraught,Or in the school of Plato taught,
Let Politicians prate;
And, arguing where they should obey,
Their skill in surgery display
To set a broken State.
But ancient Forms to recommend,
Let Evils that on Change attend,
Be still before our eyes;
Experience carries it from Rules;
And faults are sooner found by Fools,
Than mended by the Wise.
| Miscellanies, in Verse and Prose | |