 | |
| |
| Against an elm a sheep was tied, |
| The butcher's knife in blood was dyed: |
| The patient flock in silent fright, |
| From far beheld the horrid sight. |
| 5 | A savage boar, who near them stood, |
| Thus mocked to scorn the fleecy brood. |
| „All cowards should be served like you. |
| See, see, your murderer is in view: |
| With purple hands and reeking knife, |
| 10 | He strips the skin yet warm with life; |
| |
| Your quartered sires, your bleeding dams, |
| The dying bleat of harmless lambs, |
| Call for revenge. O stupid race! |
| The heart that wants revenge is base.“ |
| 15 | „I grant.“ an ancient ram replies, |
| „We bear no terror in our eyes; |
| Yet think us not of soul so tame, |
| Which no repeated wrongs inflame; |
| Insensible of every ill, |
| 20 | Because we want thy tusks to kill. |
| |
| Know, those who violence pursue, |
| Give to themselves the vengeance due; |
| For in these massacres we find |
| The two chief plagues that waste mankind: |
| 25 | Our skin supplies the wrangling bar, |
| It wakes their slumbering sons to war; |
| And well revenge may rest contented, |
| Since drums and parchment were invented.“ |
