De Animabus Brutorum

No doubt 'twere heresy, or something worse
Than aught that priests call worthy of damnation,

Should I maintain, though in a sportive verse.
That bird or fish can e'er attain salvation ;
Yet some have held that they are all possess
And may be damn'd, although they can't be bless'd.

Such doctrine broach "d Antonio Margerita,
A learned Spaniard, mighty metaphysical.
To him the butterfly had seem'd a Lytta, —

His wasp-stung wits were grown so quaint and phthisical ;
To him the sweetest song of Philomel
Had talk'd of nothing in the world but hell.
Heaven save us all from such a horrid dream !
Nor let the love of heaven, — of heaven, forsooth! —
Make hard our hearts, that we should so blaspheme

God for Christ's sake, and lie for love of truth.
Poor Tray I art thou indeed a mere machine.
Whose vital power is a spirit unclean ?

If all the lives that throng the air and earth,
And swarm innumerous in the slimy deep,

Die once for all, and have no second birth, —
If, ceasing once, they do not even sleep.
But are no more than sounds of yesterday,
Or rainbow tints that come and pass away, —
Yet are they not to loving Nature lost;
She doth but take them to herself again !
The curious pencilling of moonlit frost

Melts in the morning ray, and leaves no stain ;
Yet every drop preserved distils in showers,
And winds along the veins of dewy flowers.
Nor shall they all in their oblivion lie,
Nor lack the life, though vain that life may be,

Which breathes in strains that wasting time defy :
A poet's song can memorise a flea ;
The subtle fancy of deep-witted Donne,
The wee phlebotomist descanted on.

And once that strenuous insect leap'd by chance
Upon the white breast of a Gallic dame ;

Forthwith the wits of universal France
Vied to consign the happy flea to fame !
Pasquier, the gravest joker of the age.
Berhymed La Puce in many a polish'd page.

The Teian bard, so skittish and so hoary,
That loved so well all things that merry be,

In honied phrases gave to blithest glory
The shrill cicada chirping cheerily ;
The bloodless songster drunk with balmy dew.
Whose happy being every year is new.

That sad old wag, that Peter Pindar hight,
Who was no worshipper of William Pitt's,

Did whilome soar a bold Pindaric flight
To celebrate the progeny of nitts.
Telling how once a creature without wings
The crown invaded of the best of kings.

The insect empress, and her clustering throng
Of chemists, famed for geometric skill.

Have lent their labour'd sweets to Virgil's song,
Their stings bequeath'd to wicked Mandeville ;
Wealthy as Tyre their homes, the more their sorrow,
Like Tyre despoil'd, and smother'd like Gomorrah.

" Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and be wise ! "
So said the amorous king that wrote of hyssop, —

You know the rest. Nothing that creeps or flies
Reads half so good a lesson in all Æsop.
Great Johnson has berhymed the words ; I swear,
He'd better far have left them as they were.

No question you have heard of Virgil's gnat,
Which by our gentle Spenser was transmuted,

Though probably I need not tell you that
Its authenticity is much disputed ;
And 'tis denied also by judgments nice
That Homer ever sung of frogs and mice.
If Homer did not, some one did, I'm sure ;
The tale is extant in the choicest Greek.
Can living tongue express, in phrase so pure.

The deep bass croak, and shriller treble squeak ?
And Aristophanes no title lacks