The Frogs Asking a King by Jean de La Fontaine

A certain commonwealth aquatic, / Grown tired of order democratic, / By clamouring in the ears of Jove, effected / Its being to a monarch's power subjected. / Jove flung it down, at first, a king pacific. / Who nathless fell with such a splash terrific, / The marshy folks, a foolish race and timid, / Made breathless haste to get from him hid. / They dived into the mud beneath the water, / Or found among the reeds and rushes quarter. / And long it was they dared not see / The dreadful face of majesty, / Supposing that some monstrous frog / Had been sent down to rule the bog. / The king was really a log, / Whose gravity inspired with awe / The first that, from his hiding-place / Forth venturing, astonish'd, saw / The royal blockhead's face. / With trembling and with fear, / At last he drew quite near. / Another follow'd, and another yet, / Till quite a crowd at last were met; / Who, growing fast and strangely bolder, / Perch'd soon upon the royal shoulder. / His gracious majesty kept still, / And let his people work their will. / Clack, clack! what din beset the ears of Jove? / 'We want a king,' the people said, 'to move! ' / The god straight sent them down a crane, / Who caught and slew them without measure, / And gulp'd their carcasses at pleasure; / Whereat the frogs more wofully complain. / 'What! what! ' great Jupiter replied; / 'By your desires must I be tied? / Think you such government is bad? / You should have kept what first you had; / Which having blindly fail'd to do, / It had been prudent still for you / To let that former king suffice, / More meek and mild, if not so wise. / With this now make yourselves content, / Lest for your sins a worse be sent. '[1]

[1]: Aesop: Phaedrus, I. 2.