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The Acorn And The Pumpkin.
By Jean de La Fontaine
God's works are good. This truth to prove
Around the world I need not move;
I do it by the nearest pumpkin.
'This fruit so large, on vine so small,'
Surveying once, exclaim'd a bumpkin -
'What could He mean who made us all?
He's left this pumpkin out of place.
If I had order'd in the case,
Upon that oak it should have hung -
A noble fruit as ever swung
To grace a tree so firm and strong.
Indeed, it was a great mistake,
As this discovery teaches,
That I myself did not partake
His counsels whom my curate preaches.
All things had then in order come;
This acorn, for example,
Not bigger than my thumb,
Had not disgraced a tree so ample.
The more I think, the more I wonder
To see outraged proportion's laws,
And that without the slightest cause;
God surely made an awkward blunder.'
With such reflections proudly fraught,
Our sage grew tired of mighty thought,
And threw himself on Nature's lap,
Beneath an oak, - to take his nap.
Plump on his nose, by lucky hap,
An acorn fell: he waked, and in
The matted beard that graced his chin,
He found the cause of such a bruise
As made him different language use.
'O! O!' he cried; 'I bleed! I bleed!
And this is what has done the deed!
But, truly, what had been my fate,
Had this had half a pumpkin's weight!
I see that God had reasons good,
And all his works well understood.'
Thus home he went in humbler mood.[1]
Extra Info:
[1] This fable was much admired by Madame de Sévigné.
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