Jupiter and the Passenger by Jean de La Fontaine

How danger would the gods enrich, / If we the vows remember'd which / It drives us to! But, danger past, / Kind Providence is paid the last. / No earthly debt is treated so. / 'Now, Jove,' the wretch exclaims, 'will wait; / He sends no sheriff to one's gate, / Like creditors below; ' / But, let me ask the dolt, / What means the thunderbolt?

A passenger, endanger'd by the sea, / Had vow'd a hundred oxen good / To him who quell'd old Terra's brood. / He had not one: as well might he / Have vow'd a hundred elephants. / Arrived on shore, his good intents / Were dwindled to the smoke which rose / An offering merely for the nose, / From half a dozen beefless bones. / 'Great Jove,' said he, 'behold my vow! / The fumes of beef thou breathest now / Are all thy godship ever owns: / From debt I therefore stand acquitted. ' / With seeming smile, the god submitted, / But not long after caught him well, / By sending him a dream, to tell / Of treasure hid. Off ran the liar, / As if to quench a house on fire, / And on a band of robbers fell. / As but a crown he had that day, / He promised them of sterling gold / A hundred talents truly told; / Directing where conceal'd they lay, / In such a village on their way. / The rogues so much the tale suspected, / Said one, 'If we should suffer you to, / You'd cheaply get us all detected; / Go, then, and bear your gold to Pluto. '[1]