.
Such scatter'd ears as are not worth your care,
Your charity, for alms, may safely spare,
For alms are but the vehicles of prayer.
My daily bread is literally implored;
I have no barns nor granaries to hoard.
If Caesar to his own his hand extends,
Say which of yours his charity offends: 110
You know he largely gives to more than are his friends.
Are you defrauded when he feeds the poor?
Our mite decreases nothing of your store.
I am but few, and by your fare you see
My crying sins are not of luxury.
Some juster motive sure your mind withdraws,
And makes you break our friendship's holy laws;
For barefaced envy is too base a cause.

Show more occasion for your discontent;
Your love, the Wolf, would help you to invent: 120
Some German quarrel, or, as times go now,
Some French, where force is uppermost, will do.
When at the fountain's head, as merit ought
To claim the place, you take a swilling draught,
How easy 'tis an envious eye to throw,
And tax the sheep for troubling streams below;
Or call her (when no farther cause you find)
An enemy possess'd of all your kind!
But then, perhaps, the wicked world would think,
The Wolf design'd to eat as well as drink. 130

This last allusion gall'd the Panther more,
Because indeed it rubb'd upon the sore.
Yet seem'd she not to wince, though shrewdly pain'd:
But thus her passive character maintain'd.

I never grudged, whate'er my foes report,
Your flaunting fortune in the Lion's court.
You have your day, or you are much belied,
But I am always on the suffering side:
You know my doctrine, and I need not say,
I will not, but I cannot disobey. 140
On this firm principle I ever stood;
He of my sons who fails to make it good,
By one rebellious act renounces to my blood.

Ah, said the Hind, how many sons have you,
Who call you mother, whom you never knew!
But most of them who that relation plead,
Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead.
They gape at rich revenues which you hold,
And fain would nibble at your grandame Gold;
Inquire into your years, and laugh to find 150
Your crazy temper shows you much declined.
Were you not dim and doted, you might see
A pack of cheats that claim a pedigree,
No more of kin to you, than you to me.