Fable III. the Ducklings and the Wise Birds

A Hen, one evening to enjoy the cool, Was walking with a brood of ducklings callow, Just like a mistress of a boarding-school, With misses green and yellow. As she was tutoring and schooling This bird fot loitering, and that for fooling, Behold a fish-pond so alluring, That, spite of her remonstrances and cackle, They ventur'd their whole stock without ensuring, Trusting to their oars and tackle. The hen kept scolding like a drab, Cursing her rebellious race; We're not thy children, cried a pert young squab, If we were chickens, we should have more grace; On Nature we depend, Our course she steers, Nature's a safer guide, and better friend Than any dotard's fears. Close by the pond, an antient tower Lifted its venerable head, A college and sequester'd bower, Where owls for ages had been bred; An old professor, a great clerk, Taught them their talents to display, To keep their eyes wide open in the dark, And shut them in the face of day. To think abstractedly, to reason deep, And to declaim, 'till all the world's asleep. These students from the tower saw our young folks, Our bold adventurers under sail, They heard their clamorous mirth and jokes, And heard their nurse's fruitless wail. Observe, says one more learned than the rest, These birds by instinct know the season To sail, to eat, to go to rest, Just as we know by argument and reason. We know from reason and experience both, We see it every hour; That governors are loth To part with power. Yon hen which you all hear, In such a fright, Undoubtedly affects that fear, To keep her pupils always in her sight. From the same principle, for the same end, Our tutor keeps us all thus pen'd: Preaching that we must not pretend to fly, We are too weak, it is too soon, Which I'll demonstrate to be a lye, As clear as the sun at noon. Feet, said the subtle Owl, Are not the things, That constitute the essence of a fowl, So much as wings. Whatever is essential to our make We soonest learn, and seldomest mistake. Hence that pathetic prayer, that tender call, By which we get our wants dispatch'd, Is so essential above all, That we all speak the moment we are hatch'd. Nature, benevolent and wise, Opens our mouths much sooner than our eyes. By parity of reason meet, Our wings and pinions should be ready Long time before our heads and feet Are firm and steady. Therefore 'twill follow like a chain, That as we walk, you must confess, With little giddiness and pain, If we attempt it, we must fly with less. This reasoning philosophic wight Convinc'd his brethren one and all: With one accord they took their flight, And fatal and untimely was their fall. None of them reason'd any more, The young logicians lay like wrecks, Drown'd in the pond, or scatter'd on the shore, With mangled limbs, and broken necks. Bred in a court, or some gay city, The ducklings are those thoughtless spritely fools, O Cambridge is it not a pity, Strangers to thee and to thy schools!