Ge A

At length they’re both exhausted
With exercise and weather,

And forth the young pair sallied,
To take a stroll together.

‘Now is my time!’ thought Reynard,
And gently he stole in,

To snatch up bow and fiddle—
A prize well worth to win.

The fiddle and her young friend
Were talking of the weather,
And after their exertion
Some resin shared together.

But ere Jack reached the table,
One of the apes he saw ;
He'd but time to dive under—

*Twas well he’d closed his door :

For soon the pair returning,
For slumbering undress ;
Poor Reynard’s in a tremble,

Feels in a jolly mess.

The lady, grown facetious,
Cries, as she slipped her sandal :
‘Now let us race—the last in bed
Shall extinguish the candle!’

This race saved poor Jack’s bacon,
Else he had soon been eaten ;
They both declared they smelt him,

Yet neither would be beaten.

The Giant would have won it,
When the lady, for a lark,

O’erturned the flick’ring candle ;
And now they’re in the dark.

 

Jack rises with th’ occasion,
And, grasping fiddle, rushes
To gain his secret exit
Before the scrimmage hushes.

Which one has proved the winner
He cares not half a feather :

I think it was a dead heat ;
They knocked their heads together.

Jack felt still in a tremble

When he had gained the root ;
And to refresh and cool him

He ate a luscious fruit.

The stone he broke next morning —
A prize to find inside ;

But there is but a letter
His future course to guide.

At twelve o’clock, it tells him,
To seek the tree once more,

And take a pot of treacle
That lies within the door ;

To climb aloft and pour it
In two jars tall and wide ;
‘And mind you smear the edges,
And spill some, too, outside.

The giants will at mid-day
Seek shade in top of tree;
The two apes will be napping;

So you will no one see.

To-night you must distinguish
Yourself, and win a wife ;

The giant race extinguish,
And you'll be rich for life.