TO A GOOSE.
I cannot bear to hear thee slander'd, Goose!
It irketh me to see the truant boys
Pause in their play, and cast a stone at thee,
And call thee foolish.
Do those worthies know
That when old Rome had let the ruffian Gauls
Tread on her threshold of vitality,
And all her sentinels were comatose,
Thy charion-call did save her? Mighty strange
To call thee fool!
I think thou'rt dignified
And portly in thy bearing, and in all
The duties and proprieties of life
Art quite a pattern. Yet the duck may quack,
The turkey gabble, and the guinea-hen
Keep up a piercing and perpetual scream,
And all is well; but if thou ope thy beak,
"Fie, silly creature!"
Yet I'm sure thou'st done
Many a clever and obliging deed;
And more than this, thou from thy wing dost spare
An outcast feather, which hath woke the world,
And made it wiser.
Yea, the modest quill
Doth take its quiet stand behind the press,
And, like a prompter, tell it what to say.
