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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=431339" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Friar Philip's Geese</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">IF these gay tales give pleasure to the FAIR,<br>The honour's great conferred, I'm well aware;<br>Yet, why suppose the sex my pages shun?<br>Enough, if they condemn where follies run;<br>Laugh in their sleeve at tricks they disapprove,<br>And, false or true, a muscle never move.<br>A playful jest can scarcely give offence:<br>Who knows too much, oft shows a want of sense.<br>From flatt'ry oft more dire effects arise,<br>Enflame the heart and take it by surprise;<br>Ye beauteous belles, beware each sighing swain,<br>Discard his vows:--my book with care retain;<br>Your safety then I'll guarantee at ease.--<br>But why dismiss?--their wishes are to please:<br>And, truly, no necessity appears<br>For solitude:--consider well your years.<br>I HAVE, and feel convinced they do you wrong,<br>Who think no virtue can to such belong;<br>White crows and phoenixes do not abound;<br>But lucky lovers still are sometimes found;<br>And though, as these famed birds, not quite so rare,<br>The numbers are not great that favours share;<br>I own my works a diff'rent sense express,<br>But these are tales:--mere tales in easy dress.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To beauty's wiles, in ev'ry class, I've bowed;<br>Fawned, flattered, sighed, e'en constancy have vowed<br>What gained? you ask--but little I admit;<br>Howe'er we aim, too oft we fail to hit.<br>My latter days I'll now devote with care,<br>To guard the sex from ev'ry latent snare.<br>Tales I'll detail, and these relate at ease:<br>Narrations clear and neat will always please;<br>Like me, to this attention criticks pay;<br>Then sleep, on either side, from night till day.<br>If awkward, vulgar phrase intervene,<br>Or rhymes imperfect o'er the page be seen,<br>Condemn at will; but stratagems and art,<br>Pass, shut your eyes, who'd heed the idle part?<br>Some mothers, husbands, may perhaps be led,<br>To pull my locks for stories white or red;<br>So matters stand: a fine affair, no doubt,<br>And what I've failed to do--my book makes out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE FAIR my pages safely may pursue,<br>And this apology they'll not refuse.<br>What recompense can I presume to make?<br>A tale I'll give, where female charms partake,<br>And prove resistless whatsoe'er assail:<br>Blessed BEAUTY, NATURE ever should prevail.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">HAD Fate decreed our YOUTH, at early morn,<br>To view the angel features you adorn,<br>The captivating pow'rs AURORA bless,<br>Or airy SPRING bedecked in beauteous dress,<br>And all the azure canopy on high<br>Had vanished like a dream, once you were nigh.<br>And when his eyes at length your charms beheld,<br>His glowing breast with softest passion swelled;<br>Superior lustre beamed at ev'ry view;<br>No pleasures pleased: his soul was fixed on you.<br>Crowns, jewels, palaces, appeared as naught.<br>'Twas solely beauteous woman now he sought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A WOOD, from earliest years, his home had been,<br>And birds the only company he'd seen,<br>Whose notes harmonious often lulled his care,<br>Beguiled his hours, and saved him from despair;<br>Delightful sounds! from nightingale and dove<br>Unknown their tongue, yet indicant of love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THIS savage, solitary, rustick school,<br>The father chose his infancy to rule.<br>The mother's recent death induced the sire,<br>To place the son where only beasts retire;<br>And long the forest habitants alone<br>Were all his youthful sight had ever known.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">TWO reasons, good or bad, the father led<br>To fly the world:--all intercourse to dread<br>Since fate had torn his lovely spouse from hence;<br>Misanthropy and fear o'ercame each sense;<br>Of the world grown tired, he hated all around:--<br>Too oft in solitude is sorrow found.<br>His partner's death produced distaste of life,<br>And made him fear to seek another wife.<br>A hermit's gloomy, mossy cell he took,<br>And wished his child might thither solely look.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AMONG the poor his little wealth he threw,<br>And with his infant son alone withdrew;<br>The forest's dreary wilds concealed his cell;<br>There Philip (such his name) resolved to dwell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">BY holy motives led, and not chagrin,<br>The hermit never spoke of what he'd seen;<br>But, from the youth's discernment, strove to hide,<br>Whate'er regarded love, and much beside,<br>The softer sex, with all their magick charms,<br>That fill the feeling bosom with alarms.<br>As years advanced, the boy with care he taught;<br>What suited best his age before him brought;<br>At five he showed him animals and flow'rs,<br>The birds of air, the beasts, their sev'ral pow'rs;<br>And now and then of hell he gave a hint,<br>Old Satan's wrath, and what might awe imprint,<br>How formed, and doomed to infamy below;<br>In childhood FEAR 's the lesson first we know!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE years had passed away, when Philip tried,<br>In matters more profound his son to guide;<br>He spoke of Paradise and Heav'n above;<br>But not a word of woman,--nor of LOVE.<br>Fifteen arrived, the sire with anxious care,<br>Of NATURE'S works declaimed,--but not the FAIR:<br>An age, when those, for solitude designed,<br>Should be to scenes of seriousness confined,<br>Nor joys of youth, nor soft ideas praised<br>The flame soon spreads when Cupid's torch is raised.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AT length, when twenty summers time had run,<br>The father to the city brought his son;<br>With years weighed down, the hermit scarcely knew<br>His daily course of duty to pursue;<br>And when Death's venomed shaft should on him fall;<br>On whom could then his boy for succour call?<br>How life support, unknowing and unknown?<br>Wolves, foxes, bears, ne'er charity have shown;<br>And all the sire could give his darling care,<br>A staff and wallet, he was well aware<br>Fine patrimony, truly, for a child!<br>To which his mind was no way reconciled.<br>Bread few, 'twas clear, the hermit would deny,<br>And rich he might have been you may rely;<br>When he drew near, the children quickly cried<br>Here's father Philip--haste, the alms provide;<br>And many pious men his friends were found,<br>But not one female devotee around:<br>None would he hear; the FAIR he always fled<br>Their smiles and wiles the friar kept in dread.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">OUR hermit, when he thought his darling youth;<br>Well fixed in duty and religious truth,<br>Conveyed him 'mong his pious friends, to learn<br>How food to beg, and other ways discern.<br>In tears he viewed his son the forest quit,<br>And fain would have him for the world unfit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE city's palaces and lofty spires,<br>Our rustick's bosom filled with new desires.<br>The prince's residence great splendour showed,<br>And lively pleasure on the youth bestowed.<br>What's here? said he; The court, his friends replied:--<br>What there?--The mansions where the great reside:--<br>And these?--Fine statues, noble works of art:<br>All gave delight and gratitude his heart.<br>But when the beauteous FAIR first caught his view,<br>To ev'ry other sight he bade adieu;<br>The palace, court, or mansions he admired,<br>No longer proved the objects he desired;<br>Another cause of admiration rose,<br>His breast pervaded, and disturbed repose.<br>What's this, he cried, so elegantly neat?<br>O tell me, father; make my joy complete!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHAT gave the son such exquisite delight,<br>The parent filled with agonizing fright.<br>To answer, howsoe'er he'd no excuse,<br>So told the youth--a bird they call a goose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O BEAUTEOUS bird, exclaimed th' enraptured boy,<br>Sing, sound thy voice, 'twill fill my soul with joy;<br>To thee I'd anxiously be better known;<br>O father, let me have one for my own!<br>A thousand times I fondly ask the boon;<br>Let's take it to the woods: 'tis not too soon;<br>Young as it is, I'll feed it morn and night,<br>And always make it my supreme delight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=La+Fontaine">La Fontaine</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=431339" data-title="Friar Philip's Geese de La Fontaine" data-description="IF these gay tales give pleasure to the FAIR,
The honour's great conferred, I'm well aware;
Yet, why suppose the sex my pages shun?
Enough, if they condemn where follies run;
Laugh in their sleeve at tricks they disapprove,
And, false or true, a m..."></div>
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