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Your song and beauty prove of little use,
Since I can dine upon you if I choose.
But mind, should you resist. I'll knock your brains
Out with my beak, to pay you for your pains!"
From this we learn, 'tis not the proper plan
To take the lion's share because we can.
Wrong in all shapes I heartily detest;
'Tis but a rugged, dangerous path at best.
No mortal's insolence may always stand,
Since retribution's ever near at hand;
And soon or late the avenging day must come
That sends the guilty to their well-earned doom,
Who, when once from their former station hurled,
Become the scorn and jest of all the world.
Nor less do nations, even, feel the blow,
Who wrongly act with either friend or foe.
Offended Justice fills the very air
They breathe with frightful woes, nor will she spare
The guilty people who her laws despoil,
And drive her exiled from her native soil.
But to those nations who pay just regard
To her commands she gives a rich reward:
From every plain shall teeming cities spring,
And thriving Peace her reign of plenty bring.
Nor shall gaunt Famine stalk throughout the land,
Nor Discord o'er it cast her lurid brand.
For them the earth shall yield a rich repast,
The fruitful oak shall bend with fattening mast,
And from its boughs the honied treasure yield,
While big-fleeced lambs shall crop the flowery field.
Their women shall bring forth a noble race,
Whose honest birth is stamped upon their face;