the pot. 
    The bird’s complaint resounded
      In glorious melody;
    Whereat the Cook, astounded
      His sad mistake to see,
  Cried, “What! make soup of a musician! 
  Please God, I’ll never set such dish on. 
  No, no; I’ll never cut a throat
  That sings so passing sweet a note.”

  ’Tis thus, whatever peril may alarm us,
  Sweet words will surely never harm us.

  The Hornets and the Bees

  “The artist by his work is known.” 
    A piece of honey-comb, one day,
    Discovered as a waif and stray,
  The Hornets treated as their own. 
  Their title did the Bees dispute,
  And brought before a Wasp the suit. 
  The judge was puzzled to decide,
  For nothing could be testified
  Save that around this honey-comb
  There had been seen, as if at home,
  Some longish, brownish, buzzing creatures,
  Much like the Bees in wings and features. 
  But what of that? for marks the same,
  The Hornets, too, could truly claim. 
  Between assertion and denial,
  The Wasp, in doubt, proclaimed new trial;
  And, hearing what an ant-hill swore,
  Could see no clearer than before. 
  “What use, I pray, of this expense?”
  At last exclaim’d a Bee of sense. 
    “We’ve laboured months in this affair,
    And now are only where we were. 
  Meanwhile the honey runs to waste: 
  ’Tis time the judge should show some haste. 
  Both sides have had sufficient bleeding,
  Without more fuss of scrawls and pleading. 
  Let’s set to work, these drones and we,
  And then all eyes the truth may see,
    Whose art it is that can produce
    The magic cells, the nectar juice.” 
      The Hornets, flinching on their part,
      Show that the work transcends their art. 
      The Wasp at length their title sees,
      And gives the honey to the Bees.

      Oh, would that suits at law with us
      Might every one be managed thus!

  The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg

  Two Rats in foraging fell on an Egg—­
    For gentry such as they
    A genteel dinner every way;
  They needed not to find an ox’s leg. 
    Brimful of joy and appetite,
      They were about to sack the box,
      So tight without the aid of locks,
    When suddenly there came in sight
  A personage—­Sir Slyboots Fox. 
    Sure, luck was never more untoward
    Since Fortune was a vixen froward! 
  How should they save their Egg—­and bacon? 
    Their plunder couldn’t then be bagg’d. 
  Should it in forward paws be taken,
    Or roll’d along, or dragg’d? 
    Each method seem’d impossible,
    And each was then of danger full. 
  Necessity, ingenious mother,
  Brought forth what help’d them from their pother. 
  As still there was a chance to save their prey,
  The sponger yet some hundred yards away—­