John Gay (1685–1732)

    The lad of all-sufficient merit,

    With modesty ne’er damps his spirit;

    Presuming on his own deserts,

    On all alike his tongue exerts;

    His noisy jokes at random throws,

    And pertly spatters friends and foes;

    In wit and war the bully race

    Contribute to their own disgrace.

    Too late the forward youth shall find

    That jokes are sometimes paid in kind;

    Or if they canker in the breast,

    He makes a foe who makes a jest.

          A village-cur, of snappish race,

    The pertest puppy of the place,

    Imagined that his treble throat

    Was blest with music’s sweetest note:

    In the mid road he basking lay,

    The yelping nuisance of the way;

    For not a creature passed along,

    But had a sample of his song.

          Soon as the trotting steed he hears,

    He starts, he cocks his dapper ears;

    Away he scours, assaults his hoof;

    Now near him snarls, now barks aloof;

    With shrill impertinence attends;

    Nor leaves him till the village ends.

          It chanced, upon his evil day,

    A pad came pacing down the way:

    The cur, with never-ceasing tongue,

    Upon the passing traveller sprung.

    The horse, from scorn provoked to ire,

    Flung backward; rolling in the mire,

    The puppy howled, and bleeding lay;

    The pad in peace pursued the way.

          A shepherd’s dog, who saw the deed,

    Detesting the vexatious breed,

    Bespoke him thus: ’When coxcombs prate,

    They kindle wrath, contempt, or hate;

    Thy teasing tongue had judgment tied,

    Thou hadst not, like a puppy, died.’