The Swallow and the Little Birds

By voyages in air, / With constant thought and care, / Much knowledge had a swallow gain'd, / Which she for public use retain'd, / The slightest storms she well foreknew, / And told the sailors ere they blew. / A farmer sowing hemp, once having found, / She gather'd all the little birds around, / And said, 'My friends, the freedom let me take / To prophesy a little, for your sake, / Against this dangerous seed. / Though such a bird as I / Knows how to hide or fly, / You birds a caution need. / See you that waving hand? / It scatters on the land / What well may cause alarm. / 'Twill grow to nets and snares, / To catch you unawares, / And work you fatal harm! / Great multitudes I fear, / Of you, my birdies dear, / That falling seed, so little, / Will bring to cage or kettle! / But though so perilous the plot, / You now may easily defeat it: / All lighting on the seeded spot, / Just scratch up every seed and eat it. ' / The little birds took little heed, / So fed were they with other seed. / Anon the field was seen / Bedeck'd in tender green. / The swallow's warning voice was heard again: / 'My friends, the product of that deadly grain, / Seize now, and pull it root by root, / Or surely you'll repent its fruit. ' / 'False, babbling prophetess,' says one, / 'You'd set us at some pretty fun! / To pull this field a thousand birds are needed, / While thousands more with hemp are seeded. ' / The crop now quite mature, / The swallow adds, 'Thus far I've fail'd of cure; / I've prophesied in vain / Against this fatal grain: / It's grown. And now, my bonny birds, / Though you have disbelieved my words / Thus far, take heed at last, -- / When you shall see the seed-time past, / And men, no crops to labour for, / On birds shall wage their cruel war, / With deadly net and noose; / Of flying then beware, / Unless you take the air, / Like woodcock, crane, or goose. / But stop; you're not in plight / For such adventurous flight, / O'er desert waves and sands, / In search of other lands. / Hence, then, to save your precious souls, / Remaineth but to say, / 'Twill be the safest way, / To chuck yourselves in holes. ' / Before she had thus far gone, / The birdlings, tired of hearing, / And laughing more than fearing, / Set up a greater jargon / Than did, before the Trojan slaughter, / The Trojans round old Priam's daughter.[1] / And many a bird, in prison grate, / Lamented soon a Trojan fate.

[1]: _Priam's daughter_. -- Cassandra, who predicted the fall of Troy, and was not heeded.