FABLE 28

The Persian, the Sun, and the Cloud

Is there a bard whom genius fires,
Whose ev’ry thought the god inspires?
When Envy reads the nervous lines,
She frets, she rails, she raves, she pines;
Her hissing snakes with venom swell;
She calls her venal train from hell:
The servile fiends her nod obey,
And all Curll’s authors are in pay.
Fame calls up Calumny and Spite;
Thus shadow owes its birth to light.
As prostrate to the god of day,
With heart devout, a Persian lay,
His invocation thus begun:
“Parent of light! all seeing Sun!
Prolific beam, whose rays dispense
The various gifts of Providence;
Accept our praise, our daily prayer,
Smile on our fields, and bless the year.”
A Cloud, who mock’d his grateful tongue,
The day with sudden darkness hung;
With pride and envy swell’d, aloud
A voice thus thunder’d from the Cloud:
“Weak is this gaudy god of thine,
Whom I at will, forbid to shine.
Shall I nor vows nor incense know?
Where praise is due, the praise bestow.”
With fervent zeal the Persian moved,
Thus the proud calumny reproved:
“It was that god who claims my prayer,
Who gave thee birth, and raised thee there;
When o’er his beams the veil is thrown,
Thy substance is but plainer shown:
A passing gale, a puff of wind,
Dispels thy thickest troops combined.”
The gale arose; the vapour tost
(The sport of winds) in air was lost;
The glorious orb the day refines:
Thus Envy breaks, thus Merit shines.