Explore "The Camel and the Floating Sticks" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The first who saw the humpback'd camel / Fled off for life; the next approach'd with care; / The third with tyrant rope did boldly dare / The desert wanderer to trammel. / Such is the power of use to change / The face of objects new and strange; / Which grow, by looking at, so tame, / They do not even seem the same. / And since this theme is up for our attention, / A certain watchman I will mention, / Who, seeing something far / Away upon the ocean, / Could not but speak his notion / That 'twas a ship of war. / Some minutes more had past, -- / A bomb-ketch 'twas without a sail, / And then a boat, and then a bale, / And floating sticks of wood at last!
Full many things on earth, I wot, / Will claim this tale, -- and well they may; / They're something dreadful far away, / But near at hand -- they're not.[1]
[1]: Aesop.