The Works of John Hall-Stevenson ... Corrected and Enlarged. With Several Original Poems, Now First Printed, and Explanatory Notes. In Three Volumes |
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| IV. | FABLE IV. LA NOBLESSE DE FRANCE.
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 | The Works of John Hall-Stevenson |  |
62
FABLE IV. LA NOBLESSE DE FRANCE.
The fighting COCK and the CRAVEN.
A cock, an officer of foot,In France retir'd into a village,
Where he did nought but crow and strut,
And live by pillage.
Whene'er he had a mind
To take his pastime with the fair,
He was not to one wife confin'd,
Nor to a pair;
But, like a lord,
Had half a dozen both at bed and board.
He spied a barn-door fowl one day,
Cram'd from the rump up to the gullet,
In amorous dalliance and play
With a young pullet.
His robes and train, his senatorial cap,
His size, almost the size of geese,
Shew'd that he had been nurtur'd in the lap
Of peace.
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He judg'd, he roosted, and digested there.
The military cock took as much pleasure
As an unlucky page,
To see the magistrate employ his leisure
So much below his dignity and age.
He that should set a good example!
Be virtuous and discreet!
To tread on modesty, and trample
Chastity beneath his feet!
Fine times, says he, when judges run
Seducing maidens in the open sun!
This wanton fit
Comes of intemperance and over-eating,
Which, as it soon will bring you to the spit,
Shall save your reverence from a beating
To this reproof,
With a sly sneer the judge reply'd aloof:
'Tis true that I and all my brood,
When we have run the race assign'd
Shall have the honour to become the food
And comfort of mankind.
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Shall gently steal, not force away our breath.
Good Colonel, you are mightily mistaken,
It is not owing to respect, indeed,
That you are neither boil'd, like us, with bacon,
Roasted nor fricasséed.
But tho' your flesh be men's aversion,
Yet it contributes much to their diversion;
They give you barley, bread, and oats,
Because they take great pleasure and delight
To see you fight;
To see you cutting one another's throats.
If you escape and are not slain in war,
You are in a worse plight by far.
Amongst the hogs,
Wounded and lame upon a dunghill cast,
By wanton boys and puppy dogs,
Worried or teaz'd to death at last.
In France the land-tax is not as 'tis here,
A tax where you appeal and squabble;
There the nobility go free and clear,
Like the rascality and rabble.
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And the base polecat caught in gins:
Their flesh and bone we let alone,
We ask them nothing but their skins.
| The Works of John Hall-Stevenson | |