FABLE XXVII.
The JASMINE and HEMLOCK.
I.
TOW’RING aloft, a Jasmine sweet
In a rich garden stood;
And thence, nurs’d by wild Nature’s care,
The neighb’ring Hemlock view’d.
II.
High o’er the pale the angry flow’r
Rear’d her affronted head;
And, glowing in her vernal bloom,
She thus contemptuous said:
III.
“Say, worse than Aconite, pernicious weed!
“How dar’st thou here to grow;
“And thy detested head advance,
“Near where my blossoms blow?”
IV.
The angry Hemlock strait reply’d,
“Thou proud insulting thing!
“Vain is thy pride, and vain thy boast,
“Though deck’d by gaudy Spring.
V.
“Thou, in the blooming garden plac’d,
“May’st please the roving eye.
“I in some field or secret shade
“My useful aid supply.
VI.
“Nay, scornful flow’r! what I declare,
“Great Nature’s self will own:
“Ordaining all things fair and good,
“When once their use is known.
VII.
“Go ask of genial Bacchus’ tree,
“Where purple clusters glow;
“(Whose juice produces gen’rous wine,
“The balm of human woe.)
VIII.
“Go ask what various ills attend,
“That precious balm’s abuse:
“Ills that too surely ev’n exceed
“Those of my baneful juice.
IX.
“Yet baneful where? when mis-apply’d;
“So is each blessing too.
“This lesson learn, and know thyself;
“Nor rob me of my due.
X.
“Me the grave Leech, who, greatly wise,
“Turns Nature’s volume o’er,
“Oft snatches from my low abode,
“And places in his store.
XI.
“There, amongst health-bestowing plants,
“He ranks my honour’d name;
“And, whilst he well employs my pow’rs,
“Exalts himself to fame.
XII.
“Thus death and life alike are mine,
“Neither to thee belong:
“Though oft’ by poets most admir’d,
“The theme of idle song.
XIII.
“Be thou so still; but ne’er despise
“Those gifts thou canst not share:
“But keep this maxim in thy heart,
“The Useful is the Fair.”
XIV.
She said—abash’d the Jasmine heard,
And hung her drooping head;
She saw, That Nature’s works were good,
And all her Boasting fled.