Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/294

156 THE POEMS OF ANNE �Thus ask'd his Aid Some useful Counsel Give, �Thou who, by living long, hast learnt to live; �Whose Observation nothing can escape ; �Tell me, how I my course of Life shall shape: �To something I wou'd fix ere't be too late. �You know my Birth, my Talents, my Estate; �Shall I with these content, all Search resign, 20 �And to the Country my Desires confine ? �Or in the Court, or Camp, advancement gain? �The World's a mixture of Delight and Pain : �Tho' rough it seems, there's Pleasure in the Wars, �And Hymen's Joys are not without their Cares. �I need not ask, to what my Genius tends, �But wou'd content the World, the Court, my Friends. �Please all the World (in haste) Malherbe replies? How vain th' Attempt will prove in him, that tries, Learn from a Fable, I have somewhere found, 30 Before I answer all that you propound. �A Miller and his Son (the Father old, The Boy about some fifteen Years had told) Designed their Ass to sell, and for the Fair, Some distance off, accordingly prepare. But lest she in the walk should lose her Flesh, And not appear, for Sale, so full and fresh, Her Feet together ty'd; between them two They heav'd her up; and on the Rusticks go: Till those, who met them bearing thus the Ass, 40 Cry'd, Are these Fools about to act a Farce ? Surely the Beast (howe'er it seem to be) Is not the greatest Ass of all the Three. The Miller in their Mirth his Folly finds, And down he sets her, and again unbinds ; And tho' her grumbling shew'd, she lik'd much more ��� �