AESOP



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 lion or the frog -
In all the life of moor and fen,
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes 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.

'For WE are neither bond nor free,
For WE have neither slaves nor kings,
But near to Nature's heart are we,
And conscious of her secret things.