The Lobster and her Daughter

The wise, sometimes, as lobsters do, / To gain their ends back foremost go. / It is the rower's art; and those / Commanders who mislead their foes, / Do often seem to aim their sight / Just where they don't intend to smite. / My theme, so low, may yet apply / To one whose fame is very high, / Who finds it not the hardest matter / A hundred-headed league to scatter. / What he will do, what leave undone, / Are secrets with unbroken seals, / Till victory the truth reveals. / Whatever he would have unknown / Is sought in vain. Decrees of Fate / Forbid to check, at first, the course / Which sweeps at last with torrent force. / One Jove, as ancient fables state, / Exceeds a hundred gods in weight. / So Fate and Louis[1] would seem able / The universe to draw, / Bound captive to their law. -- / But come we to our fable. / A mother lobster did her daughter chide: / 'For shame, my daughter! can't you go ahead? ' / 'And how go you yourself? ' the child replied; / 'Can I be but by your example led? / Head foremost should I, singularly, wend, / While all my race pursue the other end. ' / She spoke with sense: for better or for worse, / Example has a universal force. / To some it opens wisdom's door, / But leads to folly many more. / Yet, as for backing to one's aim, / When properly pursued / The art is doubtless good, / At least in grim Bellona's game.[2]

[1]: _Louis_. -- Louis XIV.