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THE OWLS:

A FABLE.

Addressed to Mr. Sheridan, on his late affair in the Theatre.

• Envy will Merit still pursue,
• As shade succeeds to light
• And though a shade obstructs the view,
• It proves the substance right.


• If Worth appears, and gets its due,
• (But oh! how rare that gain!)
• The satyrs and the mimic crew
• Shall grin behind the scene.


• Some artifice shall find a way,
• Some secret whisper dwell
• But to defeat such arts, you say,
• The maxim is—do well.


• Now hear a tale, a moral too,
• Allow it poor, or pretty.
• The owls one day, (if Fame says true)
• Composed a sage committee.


• ‘Twas there resolved in cool debate,
• Each offering his true sense ;
• That Phoebus, source of light and heat,
• Was nothing but a nuisance.


• To whom the glorious lamp of day
• In mildest radiance spoke:—
• “Shall I withdraw my genial ray
• Because your vigil’s broke?


• ‘Shall Nature’s frame and Nature’s laws
• By me be unattended,
• Because, forsooth, a noble cause!
• An Owl or two’s offended


• “O sons of gloom! get brighter sense,
• More conscionably speak
• Why should my beams be less intense
• Because your eyes are weak?


• “The fault is yours, if faults you see,
• The punishing be mine;
• And my complete revenge shall be,
• I still will rise and shine.”

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