The time fhall come when Chanticleer shall wish
His words unsaid, and hate his boasted bliss :
The crefted bird fhall by experience know,
Jove made not him his mafter-piece below;
And learn the latter end of joy is woe.
The veffel of his blifs to dregs is run,
And Heaven will have him tafte his other tun.
Ye wife, draw near, and hearken to my tale,
Which proves that oft the proud by flattery fall:
The legend is as true I undertake
As Triftran is, and Launcelot of the lake:
Which all our ladies in fuch reverence hold,
As if in book of martyrs it were told.
A fox full-fraught with feeming fanctity,
That fear'd an oath, but, like the devil, would lie;
Who look'd like Lent, and had the holy leer,
And durft not fin before he said his prayer;
This pious cheat, that never suck'd the blood,
Nor chew'd the flesh of lambs, but when he cou'd ;
Had pafs'd three fummers in the neighbouring wood:
And mufing long, whom next to circumvent,
On Chanticleer his wicked fancy bent:
And in his high imagination caft,
By ftratagem to gratify his taste.
The plot contriv'd, before the break of day,
Saint Reynard through the hedge had made his way;
The pale was next, but proudly with a bound
He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground:
Yet, fearing to be feen, within a bed
Of coleworts he conceal'd his wily head;
Then fculk'd till afternoon, and watch'd his time,
(As murderers use) to perpetrate his crime.
O hypocrite, ingenious to destroy,
O traitor, worse than Simon was to Troy ;
O vile fubverter of the Gallic reign,
More falfe than Gano was to Charlemaign!
O Chanticleer, in an unhappy hour
Didft thou forfake the fafety of thy bower:
Better for thee thou hadst believ'd thy dream,
And not that day defcended from the beam!
But here the doctors eagerly difpute :
Some hold predeftination absolute:
Some clerks maintain, that Heaven at first foresees,
And in the virtue of forefight decrees.
If this be fo, then prefcience binds the will,
And mortals are not free to good or ill :
For what he first forefaw, he must ordain,
Or its eternal prescience may be vain :
As bad for us as prescience had not been:
For firft, or laft, he's author of the fin.
And who fays that, let the blafpheming man
Say worse ev'n of the devil, if he can.
For how can that eternal Power be just
To punish man, who fins because he must?
Or, how can he reward a virtuous deed,
Which is not done by us; but first decreed.
I cannot bolt this matter to the bran,
As Bradwardin and holy Austin can ;
If prescience can determine actions fo
That we must do, because he did foreknow,
Or that, foreknowing, yet our choice is free,
Not forc'd to fin by strict necessity ;
This ftrict neceffity they fimple call,
Another fort there is conditional.
The first fo binds the will, that things foreknown
By spontaneity, not choice, are done.
Thus galley-flaves tug willing at their oar,
Content to work, in prospect of the shore;
But would not work at all if not conftrain'd before.
That other does not liberty constrain,
But man may either act, or may refrain.
Heaven made us agents free to good or ill,
And forc'd it not, though he forefaw the will.
Freedom was firft bestow'd on human race,
And prescience only held the second place.
If he could make such agents wholly free,
I not difpute, the point's too high for me;
For heaven's unfathom'd power what man can found,
Or put to his Omnipotence a bound?
He made us to his image, all agree;
That image is the foul, and that must be,
Or not the maker's image, or be free.
But whether it were better man had been
By nature bound to good, not free to fin,
I wave, for fear of splitting on a rock.
The tale I tell is only of a cock;
Who had not run the hazard of his life,
Had he believ'd his dream, and not his wife :
For women, with a mischief to their kind,
Pervert, with bad advice, our better mind.
A woman's counsel brought us first to woe,
And made her man his paradise forego,
Where at heart's ease he liv'd; and might have been
As free from forrow as he was from fin.
For what the devil had their sex to do,
That, born to folly, they prefum'd to know,
And could not fee the ferpent in the grafs ?
But I myself presume, and let it pass.
Silence in times of fuffering is the best,
'Tis dangerous to disturb an hornet's nest.
In other authors you may find enough,
But all they fay of dames is idle stuff.
Legends of lying wits together bound,
The wife of Bath would throw them to the ground;
Thefe are the words of Chanticleer, not mine,
I honour dames, and think their fex divine.
Now to continue what my tale begun;
Lay madam Partlet basking in the sun,
Breaft-high in fand: her fifters, in a row,
Enjoy'd the beams above, the warmth below.
The cock, that of his flesh was ever free,
Sung merrier than the mermaid in the sea :
And fo befel, that as he caft his eye,
Among the coleworts on a butterfly,
He faw falfe Reynard where he lay full low :
I need not fwear he had no lift to crow:
But cry'd, cock, cock, and gave a fudden start,
As fore difmay'd and frighted at his heart;
For birds and beafts, inform'd by nature, know
Kinds oppofite to theirs, and fly their foe.
So Chanticleer, who never faw a fox,
Yet fhunn'd him as a failor fhuns the rocks.
But the falfe loon, who could not work his will By open force, employ'd his flattering skill;
I hope, my lord, faid he, I not offend;
you afraid of me, that am your friend?
I were a beaft indeed to do you wrong,
1, who have lov'd and honour'd you fo long:
Stay, gentle Sir, nor take a false alarm,
For on my soul I never meant you harm.
I come no fpy, nor as a traitor prefs,
To learn the fecrets of your foft recefs :
Far be from Reynard fo profane a thought,
But by the sweetness of your voice was brought:
For, as I bid my beads, by chance I heard
The fong as of an angel in the yard;
A fong that would have charm'd th' infernal Gods,
And banish'd horror from the dark abodes;
Had Orpheus fung it in the nether sphere,
So much the hymn had pleas'd the tyrant's ear,
The wife had been detain'd, to keep the husband there.
My lord, your fire familiarly I knew,
A peer deferving fuch a fon as you:
He, with your lady-mother, (whom Heaven reft)
Has often grac'd my houfe, and been my gueft:
To view his living features, does me good;
For I am your poor neighbour in the wood;
And in my cottage should be proud to fee
The worthy heir of my friend's family.
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