To a Dog

Since Nature taught you, Tray, to be a thief,
What blame have you, for working at your trade?
What if you stole a handsome round of beef;
Theft, in your code of laws, no crime was made.

The ten commandments you had never read,
Nor did it ever enter in your head:
But art and Nature, careful to conceal,
Disclos'd not even the Eighth--Thou shalt not steal.

Then to the green wood, caitiff, haste away:
There take your chance to live--for Truth must say,
We have no right, for theft, to hang up Tray.