Page:The Hind and the Panther - Dryden (1687).djvu/55

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The Hind and the Panther.
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If not by Scriptures how can we be sure
(Reply'd the Panther) what tradition's pure?
For you may palm upon us new for old,
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.

How but by following her, reply'd the Dame,
To whom deriv'd from fire to son they came;
Where ev'ry age do's on another move,
And trusts no farther than the next above;
Where all the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise,
The lowest hid in earth, the topmost in the skyes.

Sternly the salvage did her answer mark,
Her glowing eye-balls glitt'ring in the dark,
And said but this, since lucre was your trade,
Succeeding times such dreadfull gaps have made
'Tis dangerous climbing: to your sons and you
I leave the ladder, and its omen too.

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