The Camel And The Floating Sticks

: A Hundred Fables Of La Fontaine

The first who saw the humpback'd camel

Fled off for life; the next approach'd with care;

The third with tyrant rope did boldly dare

The desert wanderer to trammel.

Such is the power of use to change

The face of objects new and strange;

Which grow, by looking at, so tame,

They do not even seem the same.

And since this theme is up for our a
tention,

A certain watchman I will mention,

Who, seeing something far

Away upon the ocean,

Could not but speak his notion

That 'twas a ship of war.

Some minutes more had past,--

A bomb-ketch 'twas without a sail,

And then a boat, and then a bale,

And floating sticks of wood at last!



_Full many things on earth, I wot,_

_Will claim this tale,--and well they may;_

_They're something dreadful far away,_

_But near at hand--they're not._



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