Page:Australian and Other Poems.djvu/96



fox, in former times (I owe a fable for my rhymes), A stork invited, to partake At his expense, of a beef-steak, And make him merry at his hall, Away 'mid forest dense and tall, Where Reynard oft found good defence, When pressed right hard for an offence: As helping goose or pullet rich Down from roost or up from ditch; Or, as the Scriptures doth propound, Lifting a neighbour from the ground, That near some highway he had met, And deemed for house and home hard set. Well, to our tale—his note polite The stork did answer with a flight,