Fable XXVI The Conceited Fly
’Twas in the charming month of May
(No matter, critics, for the day),
When Phœbus had his noon attain’d,
And in his blaze of glory reign’d;
A Fly as gay as e’er was seen,
Clad o’er in azure, jet, and green;
Gay, for his part, as birthday beau,
Whose soul is vanish’d into show;
On Paul’s famed temple chanc’d to light,
To ease his long laborious flight:
There, as his optics gaz’d around
(An inch or two their utmost bound),
He thus began:—“Men vainly tell
How they in works of skill excel:
This edifice they proudly show
To prove what human art can do;
’Tis all a cheat—before my eyes
What infinite disorders rise!
Here hideous cavities appear,
And broken precipices There:
They never us’d the plane or line,
But jumbled heaps without design.”
He ceas’d contemptuous;—and as Flies
Discern with microscopic eyes,
From what he saw he reason’d right,
But how inadequate the sight!
To mark the building from its base,
The pillar’d pomp, the sculptur’d grace,
The dome, the cross, the golden ball,
Much less the grand result of all!
So impious wits, with proud disdain,
Redemption’s hidden ways arraign,
Deem it beneath a being wise,
And, judging with their insect eyes,
View but a part, and then deny
Th’ eternal wisdom of the sky.
But can thy ken, presumptuous man,
Unfold this deep and wondrous plan?
As well might insect organs see
Th’ harmonious structure rais’d by thee,
As thine imperfect tube explore
This wise and gracious system o’er.
FINIS
Footnotes
1 An impression is given in “Jackson,” at page 477 (Edition 1861, Bohn). See also next page.
[2] Suidas.
3 Alsop.
4 Philostratus.
5 Pliny.
6 Priscian.
7 Institut. Orat. i. c. 9.
8 De Repub. Lib. ii.
9 This alludes to the well-known Fable of The Fox and the Grapes, which, however absurd it may appear in this part of the world, is not so in the East, for Dr Hasselquist, in his Travels, p. 184, observes, that “the Fox is an animal common in Palestine, and that there is plenty of them near the convent of St John in the Desert about vintage time; and they destroy all the vines unless they are strictly watched.” To the same effect Solomon saith in the Canticles, ii. 15, “Take us the Foxes, the little Foxes that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.” Therefore this ancient Apologue is very properly restored, without prejudice to nature or common sense.
10 The Lion.