XIII. The Fox and the Crow

His folly in repentance ends,

Who, to a flatt’ring knave attends.

A Crow, her hunger to appease,

Had from a window stolen some cheese,

And sitting on a lofty pine

In state, was just about to dine.

This, when a Fox observed below,

He thus harangued the foolish Crow:

“Lady, how beauteous to the view

Those glossy plumes of sable hue!

Thy features how divinely fair!

With what a shape, and what an air!

Could you but frame your voice to sing,

You’d have no rival on the wing.”

But she, now willing to display

Her talents in the vocal way,

Let go the cheese of luscious taste,

Which Renard seized with greedy haste.

The grudging dupe now sees at last

That for her folly she must fast.

Riley