Page 17 - Poetry-Animals

Attested, glad, his approbation
Of an immediate conjugation.
Their sentiments so well expressed
Influenced mightily the rest;
All paired, and each pair built a nest;
But though the birds were then in haste,
The leaves came on not quite so fast,
And destiny, that sometimes bears
An aspect stern on man’s affairs,
Not altogether smiled on theirs.
The wind, of late breathed gently forth,
Now shifted east, and east by north;
Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you know,
Could shelter them from rain or snow.
Stepping into their nests, they paddled,
Themselves were chilled, their eggs were addled.
Soon every father bird and mother
Grew quarrelsome and pecked each other,
Parted without the least regret,
Except that they had ever met
And learned in future to be wiser
Than to neglect a good adviser.

MORAL.
Misses! the tale that I relate
This lesson seems to carry—
Choose not alone the proper mate,
But proper time to marry.

— William Cowper (Girl’s Own Paper, 1880)

*It was one of the whimsical speculations of this philosopher, that
all fables which ascribe reason and speech to animals, should be
withheld from children, as being only vehicles of deception. But
what child was ever deceived by them, or can be, against the
evidence of his senses?

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