Page:The Spirit of the Nation.djvu/134

38 AN ARMS' BILL FABLE.

In days of old the Serpent came

To the Lion's rocky hall,

And the forest king spread the sward with game,

And they drank at the torrent's fall;

And the Serpent saw that the woods were fair,

And she long'd to make her dwelling there.

But she saw that her host had a knack of his own,

At tearing a sinew or cracking a bone,

And had grinders unpleasantly strong;

So she said to herself, "I'll bamboozle the king

With my plausible speech, and all that sort of thing,

That, since Eve, to my people belong:

"These claws and those grinders must certainly be

Inconvenient to you as they're dreadful to me—

Draw 'em out, like a love, I'm so 'frighted!

And, then, since I've long had an amorous eye on

Yourself and your property, dear Mr. Lion,

We can be (spare my blushes) united."

So subtle the pow'r of her poisonous kisses,

So deadly to honour the falsehood she hisses,

The lion for once is an ass.

Before her, disarmed, the simpleton stands,

The Union's proclaimed, but the hymen'al bands

Are ponderous fetters of brass.

The Lion, self-conquer'd, is chained on the ground,

And the breath of his tyrant sheds poison around

The fame and the life of her slave.

How long in his torture the stricken king lay

Historians omit, but 'tis known that one day

The Serpent began to look grave;

For when passing, as usual, her thrall with a sneer,

She derisively hiss'd some new taunt in his ear—

He shook all his chains with a roar;