The Gifted Ant

A gifted ant, who could no more
Than keep starvation from her door,
Once cast about that she might find
An occupation to her mind.

An ant with active hands and feet
Can, as a rule, make both ends meet.
Unhappily, this was not quite
The case with her of whom I write.

“Since I am gifted,” she’d explain,
“I ought to exercise my brain.
The only thing for me, it’s clear,
Is a professional career!”

But no profession could she find,
Until one day there crossed her mind
The proverb bidding sluggards gaze
Upon the ant to learn her ways.

“The very thing!” she cried. “Hurray!
I’ll advertise without delay.
Things are come to a pretty pass,
If I can’t teach a sluggard class!”

She set to work without delay,
And wrote some cards that very day;
And hung them in the grass—a plan
To catch the sluggard’s eye. They ran

As follows:

SLUGGARDS who desire
An education to acquire
Will find it well to call to-day
Upon Professor Ant, B. A.
HER Sluggard Class, she begs to state,
Reopens at an early date
With several vacancies—a chance
Exceptional—

Terms—In Advance.

She placed at every turn that led
To her abode, a sign which read,
“Go to the Ant,” and hung beside
Her picture, highly magnified.

Said she, “At least that cannot fail
To bring a Turtle, Sloth, or Snail,
A Dormouse, or a Boy, to learn
Their livelihood (and mine) to earn!

“I’ll teach them, first of all, to see
The joyousness of industry;
And they, to grasp my meaning more,
Shall gather in my winter store.

“The Beauty of Abstemiousness
I’ll next endeavor to impress
Upon their minds at meals. (N. B.
That is—if they should board with me.)

“Then Architecture they shall try
(My present house is far from dry)—
In short, all Honest Toil I’ll teach
(And they shall practise what I preach).”

Alas, for castles in the air!—
There’s no delusion anywhere
Quite so delusive as, I fear,
Is a professional career.

So thought the ant last time we met.
She only has one sluggard yet,
Who scantly fills her larder shelf—
It is, I grieve to say, herself!