The Stag and the Fountain

That good from bad men rarely know,

This apologue may serve to show:

A stag upon a fountain’s side,

Beheld his branching horns with pride;

While of his spindle-shanks asham’d,

Their disproportioned form he blam’d.

Sudden he hears the hunter’s cries,

And to the forest nimbly flies.

The woods receive their well-known guest.

His tangled horns, his feet arrest;

The hounds approach, and seize their prey;

Who, dying, thus was heard to say:

“Wretch that I am! too late I learn,

How little we the truth discern!

What would have saved me, I despis’d,

And what has been my ruin, priz’d!”