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Title: The Bull And The Mastiff
Author: John Gay [
More Titles by Gay]
Deem you to train your son and heir,
For his preceptor then take care;
To sound his mind your cares employ,
E'er you commit to him your boy.
Once on a time on native plain
A bull enjoyed a native reign.
A mastiff, stranger there, with ire
Beheld the bull, with eyes of fire.
The bovine monarch, on his part,
Spurned up the dust with dauntless heart,
Advised the mastiff to think twice,
And asked--if lust or avarice,
From which, in main, contention springs,
Caused him to break the peace of kings?
The mastiff answered him, 'twas glory--
To emulate the sons of story;
Told him that Caesar was his sire,
And he a prince baptized in fire;
That rifles and the mitrailleur
Had thrown his bosom in a stir.
"Accursed cur!" the bull replied,
"Delighting in the sanguine tide:
If you are Revolution trained,
Doubtless your paws with blood are stained--
Demons that take delight in slaughter,
And pour out human blood as water--
Take then thy fate." With goring wound
The monarch tossed him from the ground
In air gyrating--on the stones
He fell a mass of broken bones.
[The end]
John Gay's poem: Bull And The Mastiff
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