Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

Be plundered from the elephant;
Let native locks adorn thy head,
Nor glow thy cheeks with borrowed red;
Give to the ostrich back his plume,
Nor rob the cat of her perfume;
Here to the beaver yield at once
His fur which crowns thy empty sconce;
In short, appear through every part
No more, nor less, than what thou art;
Then little better than an ape
Will show thy metamorphosed shape;
While butterflies to death retain
The beauties they from Nature gain.
"You'll say, perhaps, our sojourn here
Is less, by half, than half a year;
That churlish winter surely brings
Destruction to our painted wings.
I grant the truth. Now, answer me:
Can beaus outlive adversity?
Will milliners and tailors join
To make a foppish beggar fine?
'Tis certain, no. Of glitter made,
You surely vanish in the shade.
Compared, then, who will dare deny
A beau is less than butterfly?"'

The Nightingale and Glow-worm (Edward Moore)

'The prudent nymph, whose cheeks disclose
The lily and the blushing rose,
From public view her charms will screen,
And rarely in the crowd be seen.
This simple truth shall keep her wise:
"The fairest fruits attract the flies."
One night a glow-worm, proud and vain,
Contemplating her glitt'ring train,
Cried, "Sure there never was in Nature
So elegant, so fine a creature;
All other insects that I see —
The frugal ant, industrious bee,
Or silk-worm – with contempt I view;
With all that low, mechanic crew
Who servilely their lives employ
In business, enemy to joy.
Mean, vulgar herd! ye are my scorn,
For grandeur only I was born;
Or, sure, am sprung from race divine,
And placed on earth to live and shine.
Those lights, that sparkle so on high,
Are but the glow-worms of the sky;
And kings on earth their gems admire
Because they imitate my fire."
She spoke. Attentive on a spray,
A nightingale forebore his lay;
He saw the shining morsel near,
And flew, directed by the glare;
Awhile he gazed, with sober look,
And thus the trembling prey bespoke:
"Deluded fool, with pride elate,
Know 'tis thy beauty brings thy fate;
Less dazzling, long thou mightst have lain,
Unheeded on the velvet plain.
Pride, soon or late, degraded mourns,
And beauty wrecks whom she adorns."'

It is interesting to observe how a true poet, Cowper, treats the same subject, the object or moral of the fable, however, being different:

The Nightingale and Glow-worm

'A nightingale, that all day long
Had cheer'd the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark;
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent:
"Did you admire my lamp," quoth he,
"As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the selfsame Power Divine
Taught you to sing and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night."
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him – as my story tells —
And found a supper somewhere else.
Hence jarring sectaries may learn
Their real interest to discern;
That brother should not war with brother,
And worry and devour each other;
But sing and shine by sweet consent,