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Title: The Hares, A Fable
Author: James Beattie [
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Yes, yes, I grant the sons of earth
Are doomed to trouble from their birth:
We all of sorrow have our share;
But say, Is your's without compare?
Look round the world; perhaps you'll find
Each individual of our kind
Pressed with an equal load of ill,
Equal at least. Look further still,
And own your lamentable case
Is little short of happiness.
In yonder hut, that stands alone,
Attend to Famine's feeble moan;
Or view the couch where Sickness lies;
Mark his pale cheek, and languid eyes,
His frame by strong convulsion torn,
His struggling sighs, and looks forlorn.
Or see, transfixed with keener pangs,
Where o'er his hoard the miser hangs;
Whistles the wind; he starts, he stares,
Nor Slumber's balmy blessing shares;
Despair, Remorse, and Terror roll
Their tempests on his harassed soul.
But here, perhaps, it may avail
To enforce our reasoning with a tale.
Mild was the morn, the sky serene,
The jolly hunting band convene;
The beagle's breast with ardour burns;
The bounding steed the champaign spurns;
And fancy oft the game descries
Through the hound's nose, and huntsman's eyes.
Just then, a council of the hares
Had met, on national affairs.
The chiefs were set; while o'er their head
The furze its frizzled covering spread.
Long lists of grievances were heard,
And general discontent appeared.
"Our harmless race shall every savage,
"Both quadruped and biped, ravage?
"Shall horses, hounds, and hunters still
"Unite their wits to work us ill?
"The youth, his parent's sole delight,
"Whose tooth the dewy lawns invite,
"Whose pulse in every vein beats strong,
"Whose limbs leap light the vales along,
"May yet e'er noontide meet his death,
"And lie dismembered on the heath:
"For youth, alas! nor cautious age,
"Nor strength, nor speed, eludes their rage.
"In every field we meet the foe,
"Each gale comes fraught with sounds of woe:
"The morning but awakes our fears,
"The evening sees us bathed in tears.
"But must we ever idly grieve,
"Nor strive our fortunes to relieve?
"Small is each individual force,
"To stratagem be our recourse;
"And then, from all our tribes combined,
"The murderer to his cost may find,
"No foe is weak, whom Justice arms,
"Whom Concord leads, and Hatred warms.
"Be roused; or liberty acquire,
"Or in the great attempt expire."--
He said no more, for in his breast
Conflicting thoughts the voice suppressed:
The fire of vengeance seemed to stream
From his swoln eyeball's yellow gleam.
And now the tumults of the war,
Mingling confusedly from afar,
Swell in the wind. Now louder cries,
Distinct, of hounds and men arise.
Forth from the brake, with beating heart,
Th' assembled hares tumultuous start,
And, every straining nerve on wing,
Away precipitately spring.
The hunting band, a signal given,
Thick thundering o'er the plain are driven;
O'er cliff abrupt, and shrubby mound,
And river broad, impetuous bound;
Now plunge amid the forest shades,
Glance through the openings of the glades;
Now o'er the level valley sweep,
Now with short steps strain up the steep,
While backward from the hunter's eyes
The landscape like a torrent flies.
At last an ancient wood they gained,
By pruner's axe yet unprofaned.
High o'er the rest, by Nature reared,
The oak's majestic boughs appeared;
Beneath, a copse of various hue
In barbarous luxuriance grew;
No knife had curbed the rambling sprays,
No hand had wove th' implicit maze.
The flowering thorn, self-taught to wind,
The hazle's stubborn stem intwined,
And bramble twigs were wreathed around,
And rough furze crept along the ground.
Here sheltering, from the sons of murther,
The hares drag their tired limbs no further.
But, lo! the western wind erelong
Was loud, and roared the woods among:
From rustling leaves, and crashing boughs,
The sound of woe and war arose.
The hares, distracted, scour the grove,
As terror and amazement drove;
But danger, wheresoe'er they fled,
Still seemed impending o'er their head.
Now crowded in a grotto's gloom,
All hope extinct, they wait their doom:
Dire was the silence, till, at length,
Even from despair deriving strength,
With bloody eye, and furious look,
A daring youth arose, and spoke.
"O wretched race, the scorn of Fate,
"Whom ills of every sort await!
"O, cursed with keenest sense to feel
"The sharpest sting of every ill!
"Say ye, who, fraught with mighty scheme,
"Of liberty and vengeance dream,
"What now remains? To what recess
"Shall we our weary steps address,
"Since Fate is evermore pursuing
"All ways and means to work our ruin?
"Are we alone, of all beneath,
"Condemned to misery worse than death!
"Must we, with fruitless labour, strive,
"In misery worse than death to live!
"No. Be the smaller ill our choice:
"So dictates Nature's powerful voice.
"Death's pang will in a moment cease;
"And then, All hail, eternal peace!"
Thus while he spoke, his words impart
The dire resolve to every heart.
A distant lake in prospect lay,
That, glittering in the solar ray,
Gleamed through the dusky trees, and shot
A trembling light along the grot.
Thither with one consent they bend,
Their sorrows with their lives to end;
While each, in thought, already hears
The water hissing in his ears,
Fast by the margin of the lake,
Concealed within a thorny brake,
A linnet sate, whose careless lay
Amused the solitary day.
Careless he sung, for on his breast
Sorrow no lasting trace impressed;
When suddenly he heard a sound
Of swift feet traversing the ground.
Quick to the neighbouring tree he flies,
Thence, trembling, casts around his eyes;
No foe appeared, his fears were vain;
Pleased, he renews the sprightly strain.
The hares, whose noise had caused his fright,
Saw, with surprise, the linnet's flight.
Is there on earth a wretch, they said,
Whom our approach can strike with dread?
An instantaneous change of thought
To tumult every bosom wrought.
So fares the system-building sage,
Who, plodding on from youth to age,
At last, on some foundation-dream,
Has reared aloft his goodly scheme,
And proved his predecessors fools,
And bound all nature by his rules;
So fares he, in that dreadful hour,
When injured truth exerts her power,
Some new phenomenon to raise;
Which, bursting on his frighted gaze,
From its proud summit to the ground,
Proves the whole edifice unsound.
"Children," thus spake a hare sedate,
Who oft had known the extremes of Fate,
"In slight events the attentive mind
"May hints of good instruction find.
"That our condition is the worst,
"And we with such misfortunes cursed
"As all comparison defy,
"Was late the universal cry.
"When, lo! an accident so slight,
"As yonder little linnet's flight,
"Has made your stubborn hearts confess
"(So your amazement bids me guess)
"That all our load of woes and fears
"Is but a part of what he bears.
"Where can he rest secure from harms,
"Whom even a helpless hare alarms?
"Yet he repines not at his lot;
"When past, his dangers are forgot:
"On yonder bough he trims his wings,
"And with unusual rapture sings;
"While we, less wretched, sink beneath
"Our lighter ills, and rush to death.
"No more of this unmeaning rage,
"But hear, my friends, the word of age:
"When, by the winds of autumn driven,
"The scattered clouds fly cross the heaven,
"Oft have we, from some mountain's head,
"Beheld the alternate light and shade
"Sweep the long vale. Here, hovering, lowers
"The shadowy cloud; there, downward pours,
"Streaming direct, a flood of day,
"Which from the view flies swift away;
"It flies, while other shades advance,
"And other streaks of sunshine glance.
"Thus chequered is the life below
"With gleams of joy, and clouds of woe.
"Then hope not, while we journey on,
"Still to be basking in the sun;
"Nor fear, though now in shades ye mourn,
"That sunshine will no more return.
"If, by your terrors overcome,
"Ye fly before the approaching gloom,
"The rapid clouds your flight pursue,
"And darkness still o'ercasts your view.
"Who longs to reach the radiant plain,
"Must onward urge his course amain;
"For doubly swift the shadow flies,
"When 'gainst the gale the pilgrim plies.
"At least be firm, and undismayed
"Maintain your ground; the fleeting shade,
"Erelong, spontaneous glides away,
"And gives you back the enlivening ray.
"Lo! while I speak, our danger past!
"No more the shrill horn's angry blast
"Howls in our ear; the savage roar
"Of war and murder is no more.
"Then snatch the hour that Fate allows,
"Nor think of past and future woes."
He spoke; and hope revives; the lake
That instant, one and all forsake,
In sweet amusement to employ
The present sprightly hour of joy.
Now, from the western mountain's brow,
Compassed with clouds of various glow,
The sun a broader orb displays,
And shoots aslope his ruddy rays.
The lawn assumes a fresher green,
And dew-drops spangle all the scene.
The balmy zephyr breathes along,
The shepherd sings his tender song.
With all their lays the groves resound,
And falling waters murmur round;
Discord and care were put to flight,
And all was peace, and calm delight.
[The end]
James Beattie's poem: Hares, A Fable
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