Fable IV The Nightingale
How few with patience can endure
The evils they themselves procure.
A Nightingale, with snares beset,
At last was taken in a net:
When first she found her wings confin’d,
She beat and flutter’d in the wind,
Still thinking she could fly away;
Still hoping to regain the spray:
But, finding there was no retreat,
Her little heart with anger beat;
Nor did it aught abate her rage;
To be transmitted to a cage.
The wire apartment, tho’ commodious,
To her appear’d excessive odious;
And though it furnish’d drink and meat,
She car’d not, for she could not eat;
’Twas not supplying her with food;
She lik’d to gather it from the wood:
And water clear, her thirst to slake,
She chose to sip from the cool lake:
And, when she sung herself to rest,
’Twas in what hedge she lik’d the best:
And thus, because she was not free,
Hating the chain of slavery,
She rather added link to link:
—Just so men reach misfortune’s brink.
At length, revolving on her state,
She cries, “I might have met worse fate,
Been seiz’d by kites or prowling cat,
Or stifled in a school boy’s hat;
Or been the first unlucky mark,
Sure hit by some fantastic spark.”
Then conscience told her, want of care
Had made her fall into the snare;
That men were free their nets to throw;
And birds were free to come or go:
And all the evils she lamented,
By caution might have been prevented.
So, on her perch more pleas’d she stood,
And peck’d the kindly offer’d food;
Resolv’d, with patience, to endure
Ills she had brought, but could not cure.