I scorn your coarse insinuation, For many a grave and learned clerk, And when I bend, retire, and shrink, Deserves not, if so soon offended, You, in your grotto-work enclosed, And as for you, my Lady Squeamish, If all the plants that can be found Should droop and wither where they grow, His censure reach'd them as he dealt it, THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long Harangued him thus, right eloquent— Did you admire my lamp, quoth he, You would abhor to do me wrong, That brother should not war with brother, The gifts of nature and of grace. Those Christians best deserve the name, Who studiously make peace their aim; Peace, both the duty and the prize Of him that creeps and him that flics. |