Page:The fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton in 1484, with those of Avian, Alfonso and Poggio. Vol 1.djvu/17

 Esop.

He sat among the woods, he heard

The sylvan merriment; he saw

The pranks of butterfly and bird,

The humours of the ape, the daw.

And in the Hon or the frog—

In all the life of moor and fen.

In ass and peacock, stork and log,

He read simiHtudes of men.

"Of these, from those," he cried, "we come.

Our hearts, our brains descend from these."

And lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,

But answered out of brakes and trees;

"Not ours," they cried; "Degenerate,

If ours at all," they cried again,

" Ye fools, who war with God and Fate,

Who strive and toil: strange race of men,