Fables :: :: University of Virginia Library

When ignorance possess'd the schools,
And reign'd by Aristotle's rules,
Ere Verulam, like dawning light,
Rose to dispel the gothic night:
A man was taught to shut his eyes,
And grow abstracted to be wise.
Nature's broad volume fairly spread,
Where all true science might be read,
The Wisdom of th' eternal Mind,
Declar'd and publish'd to mankind,

Was quite neglected, for the whims
Of mortals and their airy dreams:
By narrow principles and few,
By hasty maxims, oft untrue,
By words and phrases ill-defin'd,
Evasive Truth they hop'd to bind;
Which still escap'd them, and the elves
At last caught nothing but themselves.
Nor is this folly modern quite,
'Tis ancient too; the Stagirite
Improv'd at first, and taught his school
By rules of art to play the fool.
Ev'n Plato, from example bad,
Would oft turn sophist and run mad;
Make Socrates himself discourse
Like Clarke and Leibnitz, oft-times worse;
'Bout quirks and subtilties contending,
Beyond all human comprehending.
From some strange bias men pursue
False knowledge still in place of true,

Build airy systems of their own,
This moment rais'd, the next pull'd down;
While few attempt to catch those rays
Of truth which nature still displays
Throughout the universal plan,
From moss and mushrooms up to man.
This sure were better, but we hate
To borrow when we can create;
And therefore stupidly prefer,
Our own conceits, by which we err,
To all the wisdom to be gain'd
From nature and her laws explain'd.

One ev'ning when the sun was set
A Grasshopper and Glowworm met
Upon a hillock in a dale,
As Mab the fairy tells the Tale.
Vain and conceited of his spark,
Which brighten'd as the night grew dark,
The shining reptile swell'd with pride
To see his rays on every side,

Mark'd by a circle on the ground
Of livid light some inches round.

Quoth he, If Glowworms never shone,
To light the earth when day is gone,
In spite of all the stars that burn,
Primeval darkness wou'd return:
They're less and dimmer, one may see,
Besides much farther off than we;
And therefore thro' a long descent
Their light is scatter'd quite and spent:
While ours, compacter and at hand,
Keeps night and darkness at a stand,
Diffus'd around in many a ray,
Whose brightness emulates the day.

This pass'd and more without dispute,
The patient Grasshopper was mute:
But soon the East began to glow
With light appearing from below,
And level from the ocean's streams
The moon emerging shot her beams,

To gild the mountains and the woods,
And shake and glitter on the floods.
The Glowworm when he found his light
Grow pale and faint and vanish quite
Before the moon's prevailing ray,
Began his envy to display.

That globe, quoth he, which seems so fair,
Which brightens all the earth and air,
And sends its beams so far abroad,
Is nought, believe me, but a clod;
A thing which, if the sun were gone,
Has no more light in't than a stone,
Subsisting merely by supplies
From Phoebus in the nether skies:
My light indeed, I must confess,
On some occasions will be less;
But spite itself will hardly say
I'm debtor for a single ray;
'Tis all my own, and on the score
Of merit, mounts to ten times more

Than any planet can demand
For light dispens'd at second hand.

To hear the paltry insect boast
The Grasshopper all patience lost.

Quoth he, My friend, it may be so,
The moon with borrow'd light may glow:
That your faint glimm'ring is your own,
I think, is question'd yet by none:
But sure the office to collect
The solar brightness and reflect,
To catch those rays that wou'd be spent
Quite useless in the firmament,
And turn them downwards on the shade
Which absence of the sun has made,
Amounts to more in point of merit
Than all your tribe did e'er inherit:
Oft by that planet's friendly ray
The midnight trav'ler finds his way;
Safe by the favour of her beams
'Midst precipices, lakes and streams;

While you mislead him, and your light,
Seen like a cottage-lamp by night,
With hopes to find a safe retreat,
Allures and tempts him to his fate:
As this is so, I needs must call
The merit of your light but small:
You need not boast on't tho' your own;
'Tis light indeed, but worse than none;
Unlike to what the moon supplies,
Which you call borrow'd and despise.