Inscribed Beneath the Picture of an Ass

Meek animal, whose simple mien Provokes th’ insulting eye of Spleen To mock the melancholy trait Of patience in thy front display’d, By thy Great Author fitly so pourtray’d, To character the sorrows of thy fate; Say, Heir of misery, what to thee Is life?—A long, long, gloomy stage Through the sad vale of labour and of pain! No pleasure hath thine youth, no rest thine age, Nor in the vasty round of this terrene Hast thou a friend to set thee free, Till Death, perhaps too late, In the dark evening of thy cheerless day, Shall take thee, fainting on thy way, From the rude storm of unresisted hate.

Yet dares the erroneous crowd to mark With folly thy despised race, Th’ ungovernable pack, who bark With impious howlings in Heaven’s awful face, If e’er on their impatient head Affliction’s bitter show’r is shed.

But ’tis the weakness of thy kind Meekly to bear the inevitable sway; The wisdom of the human mind Is to murmur and obey.