But what shall one reply To what I next shall certify? Two rats in foraging fell on an egg,-- For gentry such as they A genteel dinner every way; They needed not to find an ox's leg. Brimful of joy and appetite, They were about to sack the box, So tight without the aid of locks, When suddenly there came in sight A personage--Sir Pullet Fox. Sure, luck was never more untoward Since Fortune was a vixen froward! How should they save their egg--and bacon? Their plunder couldn't then be bagg'd; Should it in forward paws be taken, Or roll'd along, or dragg'd? Each method seem'd impossible, And each was then of danger full. Necessity, ingenious mother, Brought forth what help'd them from their pother. As still there was a chance to save their prey,-- The spunger yet some hundred yards away,-- One seized the egg, and turn'd upon his back, And then, in spite of many a thump and thwack, That would have torn, perhaps, a coat of mail, The other dragg'd him by the tail. Who dares the inference to blink, That beasts possess wherewith to think?
Were I commission'd to bestow This power on creatures here below, The beasts should have as much of mind As infants of the human kind. Think not the latter, from their birth? It hence appears there are on earth That have the simple power of thought Where reason hath no knowledge wrought. And on this wise an equal power I'd yield To all the various tenants of the field; Not reason such as in ourselves we find, But something more than any mainspring blind. A speck of matter I would subtilise Almost beyond the reach of mental eyes;-- An atom's essence, one might say, An extract of a solar ray, More quick and pungent than a flame of fire,-- For if of flame the wood is sire, Cannot the flame, itself refined, Give some idea of the mind? Comes not the purest gold From lead, as we are told? To feel and choose, my work should soar-- Unthinking judgment--nothing more. No monkey of my manufacture Should argue from his sense or fact, sure: But my allotment to mankind Should be of very different mind. We men should share in double measure, Or rather have a twofold treasure; The one the soul, the same in all That bear the name of animal-- The sages, dunces, great and small, That tenant this our teeming ball;-- The other still another soul, Which should to mortals here belong In common with the angel throng; Which, made an independent whole, Could pierce the skies to worlds of light, Within a point have room to be,-- Its life a morn, sans noon or night. Exempt from all destructive change-- A thing as real as it is strange. In infancy this child of day Should glimmer but a feeble ray. Its earthly organs stronger grown, The beam of reason, brightly thrown, Should pierce the darkness, thick and gross, That holds the other prison'd close.