The Frog and the Hen
As once a Frog,
Who all day long had chatte from his bog,
Began to close
His mouth and eyes, and drop into a dose,
He chanced just then
To hear the sudden cackle of a hen.
“What sound is this?”
He cried. “Dear madam, what can be amiss,
That thus you scream,
And keep a quiet neighbour from his dream?”
The Hen replied,
Her feathers fluttering with maternal pride,
“I humbly beg
Your pardon, sir; but, having laid an egg,
I could not chuse
To let you sleep in ignorance of the news.”
“What! all this clatter
About a single egg!—so small a matter!”
“True, neighbour, true;
’Tis but a single egg—a small one, too;
But if you blame
The rout that I have made about the same,
’Tis doubly wrong
In you to croak for nothing all day long.
The egg’s of use,
And therefore I may brag with some excuse;
But the dull brute
Tha unproductive should be also mute.”
Yriarte. Trans. R. Rockliff.