Aesop In Rhyme-09

THE TWO STREAMS.

Those who display much dash and din,
Have seldom any thing within.

A weary traveller, one day,
Cross’d o’er a river in his way;
Alarm’d to see the foaming tide
Dashing o’er rocks from side to side,
Nevertheless, his course to keep,
He ventur’d in with trembling step;
And found the water neither deep,
[190]Nor footing bad; and got well o’er.
When he had travell’d some leagues more,
He to another river came,
That smoothly flowed, a silent stream:
This he thought easily to pass;
But ere he in the middle was,
He plunged into a gulf profound,
And for his feet no bottom found;
But, forced to swim with all his might,
Got to the shore in piteous plight.
[191]

THE SOT AND HIS WIFE.

Inveterate sin is seldom cur’d.

A wife had long a sot endur’d,
Who all his time in taverns spent,
While his affairs in ruin went.
Once as insensible he lay,
She dress’d him in a corpse’s array,
And with the undertaker’s aid,
Into a burying vault convey’d.
The fumes dispersed, the man awakes;
All for reality he takes.
[192]When by the glimmering of a lamp
He saw his mansion drear and damp,
Reflecting how his life had pass’d,
A forced repentance came at last.
The wife, with suited voice and dress,
Presented an infernal mess:
“Good Trap, pray take away your meat;
I have no appetite to eat,”
He cried, “but faith I’m devilish dry:
Can’t you a bowl of wine supply?”
The woman, seeing all was vain,
Restor’d him to his casks again:
Consol’d with certainty, that he
Ere long a real corpse must be.

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Read these beautiful poems and rhymes for kids. List of the poems included in this poem eBook:

1. The Two Streams
2. The Sot And His Wife
3. The Farmer And His Quarrelsome Sons
4. The Wig Tree And The Flowering Shrub
5. The Farmer And The Landlord
6. The School-Boy And The Monitor
7. The Miller And His Ass
8. The Dreamer And His Son
9. The Old Man And Death
10. The Painter

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