VI. The Frogs and Sun

When Esop saw, with inward grief,

The nuptials of a neighb’ring thief,

He thus his narrative begun:

Of old ’twas rumor’d that the Sun

Would take a wife: with hideous cries

The quer’lous Frogs alarm’d the skies.

Moved at their murmurs, Jove inquired

What was the thing that they desired?

When thus a tenant of the lake,

In terror, for his brethren spake:

“Ev’n now one Sun too much is found,

And dries up all the pools around,

Till we thy creatures perish here;

But oh, how dreadfully severe,

Should he at length be made a sire,

And propagate a race of fire!”

Riley