The Shepherd and the Sea

The Shepherd and the Sea

La Fontaine's short fable poem

A shepherd, neighbour to the sea,

Lived with his flock contentedly.

His fortune, though but small,

Was safe within his call.

At last some stranded kegs of gold

Him tempted, and his flock he sold,

Turn'd merchant, and the ocean's waves

Bore all his treasure--to its caves.

Brought back to keeping sheep once more,

But not chief shepherd, as before,

When sheep were his that grazed the shore,

He who, as Corydon or Thyrsis,

Might once have shone in pastoral verses,

Bedeck'd with rhyme and metre,

Was nothing now but Peter.

But time and toil redeem'd in full

Those harmless creatures rich in wool;

And as the lulling winds, one day,

The vessels wafted with a gentle motion,

"Want you," he cried, "more money, Madam Ocean?

Address yourself to some one else, I pray;

You shall not get it out of me!

I know too well your treachery."

_This tale's no fiction, but a fact,_

_Which, by experience back'd,_

_Proves that a single penny,_

_At present held, and certain,_

_Is worth five times as many,_

_Of Hope's, beyond the curtain;_

_That one should be content with his condition,_

_And shut his ears to counsels of ambition,_

_More faithless than the wreck-strown sea, and which_

_Doth thousands beggar where it makes one rich,--_

_Inspires the hope of wealth, in glorious forms,_

_And blasts the same with piracy and storms._