XI. The Ass and the Lion Hunting

A coward, full of pompous speech,

The ignorant may overreach;

But is the laughing-stock of those

Who know how far his valor goes.

Once on a time it came to pass,

The Lion hunted with the Ass,

Whom hiding in the thickest shade

He there proposed should lend him aid,

By trumpeting so strange a bray,

That all the beasts he should dismay,

And drive them o’er the desert heath

Into the lurking Lion’s teeth.

Proud of the task, the long-ear’d loon

Struck up such an outrageous tune,

That ’twas a miracle to hear—

The beasts forsake their haunts with fear,

And in the Lion’s fangs expired:

Who, being now with slaughter tired,

Call’d out the Ass, whose noise he stops.

The Ass, parading from the copse,

Cried out with most conceited scoff,

“How did my music-piece go off?”

“So well—were not thy courage known,

Their terror had been all my own!”

Riley