Aesop Dress'd :: :: University of Virginia Library

Away base Insect, that took Birth
From th'Exhalations of the Earth.
Thus spoke the Lyon to the Gnat;
Who answer'd, Bully, Think ye that
I'll bear Affronts? No: And declar'd
A War against him to his Beard;
And told the Hector, void of fear,
You'll find Sir King, how much I care
For all your Titles, Tooth and Claw,
Of which great Loobies stand in awe:

I'll quickly curb your haughtiness,
Damn'd Brute; and hardly utter'd this,
But sounds the Charge (he serv'd for all
For Trumpet and for General.)
He nimbly shifts from Place to Place,
And plays before the Lyon's Face;
The other snaps and strikes the Air;
The Gnat avoids him every where;
He watch'd his time, then seiz'd his Neck,
From thence he mov'd, and stung his Back,
There fasten'd, made his Kingship mad;
His Eyes sparkle in his Head;
He foams and roars, and all what's near
Trembles, and hides itself for fear,
Yet, of this general Hurrican,
And dire Alarm th'Occasion
Is, what one would suspect the least,
So small an Atom of a Beast.
With hundred rambling flights he teases
The Brute, and leads him where he pleases;
Gets up his Nostrils, laughs to see
With how much Rage his Enemy
Tore his own Flesh, and all in Blood
Ran raving through the affrighted Wood.
He still pursues, till out of Breath
The Lyon dropp'd, and bled to Death.
The merry buzzing Conqueror
Flies from the dismal Seat of War,
And as he sounded chearfully
The Charge, so sounds the Victory.
But going to proclaim his Story,
Puffed up and blinded with his Glory,

He met a Cobweb in his way,
And fell a silly Spider's Prey.

The Moral.

So one that cross'd the Ocean o'er,
May smother in a Common Shore.