Aesop and Hyssop Author:William Ellery Leonard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: To choose the course and fix the goal. The day Approached. The racers started on their way Together. Tortoise never stopped, but stepped With even pace, though s... more »low. The Hare he slept Midway amid the clover, trusting ever His native swiftness more than all endeavor, And woke at last to find the Tortoise there Beyond the goal. Moral. Now child, don't be a Hare. THE OLD MAN AND DEATH. An aged Man, employed in cutting wood And carrying faggots for a livelihood To Corinth's market, being out of breath And worn, sat down and called aloud on Death. Death hastened at his summons down the road: "Why callest me?" "That, lifting up my load, Thou may'st replace it on my shoulders." Moral. I've The same propensity to stay alive. THE DOG AND HIS IMAGE, A Dog, who clenched between his teeth a bone, Was crossing, as it chanced, a bridge alone, Intent upon a thicket where he might Unseen indulge his canine appetite: When looking down beside the plank he spied His Image in the water magnified. "Another Dog, and a more tempting bone; In size," he thinks, "at least two times my own.' He makes a savage spring with opened jaws And loses both the edibles, because: Moral. One must acquaint oneself with Nature's laws. THE ONE-EYED DOE. I sing a little tale of woe About a gentle little Doe That comes into my mind. It had the habit of surprise, Besides four legs, two ears, two eyes, Of which the one was blind. So it would always grazing be Close to the cliff beside the sea Its good eye landward cast. For thus it mused: "My danger lurks In hounds' and hunters' evil works And not in Ocean's vast." But sorrow, sorrow! Boatmen came By chance, and, taking certain aim, Did shoot her from the sea; And as she died, she sobbed and sa...« less