The Pheasant And The Lark; A Fable By Dr. Delany

1730

- quis iniquae
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se? - -Juv. i, 30.

In ancient times, as bards indite,
(If clerks have conn'd the records right.)
A peacock reign'd, whose glorious sway
His subjects with delight obey:
His tail was beauteous to behold,
Replete with goodly eyes and gold;
Fair emblem of that monarch's guise,
Whose train at once is rich and wise;
And princely ruled he many regions,
And statesmen wise, and valiant legions.
    A pheasant lord,[1] above the rest,
With every grace and talent blest,
Was sent to sway, with all his skill,
The sceptre of a neighbouring hill.[2]
No science was to him unknown,
For all the arts were all his own:
In all the living learned read,
Though more delighted with the dead:
For birds, if ancient tales say true,
Had then their Popes and Homers too;
Could read and write in prose and verse,
And speak like ***, and build like Pearce.[3]
He knew their voices, and their wings,
Who smoothest soars, who sweetest sings;
Who toils with ill-fledged pens to climb,
And who attain'd the true sublime.
Their merits he could well descry,
He had so exquisite an eye;
And when that fail'd to show them clear,
He had as exquisite an ear;
It chanced as on a day he stray'd
Beneath an academic shade,
He liked, amidst a thousand throats,
The wildness of a Woodlark's[4] notes,
And search'd, and spied, and seized his game,
And took him home, and made him tame;
Found him on trial true and able,
So cheer'd and fed him at his table.
    Here some shrewd critic finds I'm caught,
And cries out, "Better fed than taught" - Then
jests on game and tame, and reads,
And jests, and so my tale proceeds.
    Long had he studied in the wood,
Conversing with the wise and good:
His soul with harmony inspired,
With love of truth and virtue fired:
His brethren's good and Maker's praise
Were all the study of his lays;
Were all his study in retreat,
And now employ'd him with the great.
His friendship was the sure resort
Of all the wretched at the court;
But chiefly merit in distress
His greatest blessing was to bless. -
    This fix'd him in his patron's breast,
But fired with envy all the rest:
I mean that noisy, craving crew,
Who round the court incessant flew,
And prey'd like rooks, by pairs and dozens,
To fill the maws of sons and cousins:
"Unmoved their heart, and chill'd their blood
To every thought of common good,
Confining every hope and care,
To their own low, contracted sphere."
These ran him down with ceaseless cry,
But found it hard to tell you why,
Till his own worth and wit supplied
Sufficient matter to deride:
"'Tis envy's safest, surest rule,
To hide her rage in ridicule:
The vulgar eye she best beguiles,
When all her snakes are deck'd with smiles:
Sardonic smiles, by rancour raised!
Tormented most when seeming pleased!"
Their spite had more than half expired,
Had he not wrote what all admired;
What morsels had their malice wanted,
But that he built, and plann'd, and planted!
How had his sense and learning grieved them,
But that his charity relieved them!
    "At highest worth dull malice reaches,
As slugs pollute the fairest peaches:
Envy defames, as harpies vile
Devour the food they first defile."
    Now ask the fruit of all his favour -
"He was not hitherto a saver." -
What then could make their rage run mad?
"Why, what he hoped, not what he had."
    "What tyrant e'er invented ropes,
Or racks, or rods, to punish hopes?
Th' inheritance of hope and fame
Is seldom Earthly Wisdom's aim;
Or, if it were, is not so small,
But there is room enough for all."
    If he but chance to breathe a song,
(He seldom sang, and never long,)
The noisy, rude, malignant crowd,
Where it was high, pronounced it loud:
Plain Truth was Pride; and, what was sillier,
Easy and Friendly was Familiar.
    Or, if he tuned his lofty lays,
With solemn air to Virtue's praise,
Alike abusive and erroneous,
They call'd it hoarse and inharmonious.
Yet so it was to souls like theirs,
Tuneless as Abel to the bears!
    A Rook[5] with harsh malignant caw
Began, was follow'd by a Daw;[6]
(Though some, who would be thought to know,
Are positive it was a crow:)
Jack Daw was seconded by Tit,
Tom Tit[7] could write, and so he writ;
A tribe of tuneless praters follow,
The Jay, the Magpie, and the Swallow;
And twenty more their throats let loose,
Down to the witless, waddling Goose.
    Some peck'd at him, some flew, some flutter'd,
Some hiss'd, some scream'd, and others mutter'd:
The Crow, on carrion wont to feast,
The Carrion Crow, condemn'd his taste:
The Rook, in earnest too, not joking,
Swore all his singing was but croaking.
Some thought they meant to show their wit,
Might think so still - "but that they writ" -
Could it be spite or envy? - "No -
Who did no ill could have no foe." -
So wise Simplicity esteem'd;
Quite otherwise True Wisdom deem'd;
This question rightly understood,
"What more provokes than doing good?
A soul ennobled and refined
Reproaches every baser mind:
As strains exalted and melodious
Make every meaner music odious." -
At length the Nightingale[8] was heard,
For voice and wisdom long revered,
Esteem'd of all the wise and good,
The Guardian Genius of the wood:
He long in discontent retired,
Yet not obscured, but more admired:
His brethren's servile souls disdaining,
He lived indignant and complaining:
They now afresh provoke his choler,
(It seems the Lark had been his scholar,
A favourite scholar always near him,
And oft had waked whole nights to hear him.)
Enraged he canvasses the matter,
Exposes all their senseless chatter,
Shows him and them in such a light,
As more inflames, yet quells their spite.
They hear his voice, and frighted fly,
For rage had raised it very high:
Shamed by the wisdom of his notes,
They hide their heads, and hush their throats.