Classic Poem

'T WAS on a day, when streams had burst their bounds,
And rising floods o'erwhelm'd the level grounds:
A youth, while yet descended swift the rain,
Fearful and wet fled from the delug'd plain,
A little eminence well pleas'd to see,
And take the shelter of a spreading tree;
There (tho' no longer now she sweetly sung)
A pretty Nightingale had hatch'd her young:
The Boy perceiving, ere the storm subsides,
While scarce the streams roll'd back their swelling tides,
Forgetful of what scenes had met his eyes,
He long'd to make the harmless birds his prize.
Quickly he mounted, but too soon he found
What made him still more quickly seek the ground:
A Serpent round the trunk had closely twin'd,
As hoping timely shelter there to find;
But when by hands so unexpected prest,
Strait spite and anger sir'd the reptile's breast,
His venom'd tooth in all his rage he ply'd,
And forc'd the poison thro' each vein to glide.
This felt the fugitive, but hopeless bled,
No help at hand he knew, for all were fled;
Tho' none, like him, amidst the gen'ral fright,
Had basely mark'd their necessary flight.
At last return'd without the wish'd for prey,
He reach'd his home at the decline of day,
Nor, till an hundred agonies he found,
Ceas'd the dire smart, or heal'd the burning wound.
Ungrateful boy, abominable deed,
Which thus successless found so sharp a meed:
But while the recent memory remains,
A lesson of experience thus he gains;
Much happier they in virtue who delight,
Nor need such monitors to set them right.