C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Grasshopper and the Ant
By Jean de La Fontaine (16211695)
M
All through summer,
Found herself in sorry plight
When the wind began to bite:
Not a bit of grub or fly
Met the little wanton’s eye;
So she wept for hunger sore
At the Ant her neighbor’s door,
Begging her just once to bend
And a little grain to lend
Till warm weather came again.
“I will pay you,” cried she then,
“Ere next harvest, on my soul,
Interest and principal.”
Now the Ant is not a lender—
From that charge who needs defend her?
“Tell me what you did last summer?”
Said she to the beggar-maid.
“Day and night, to every comer
I was singing, I’m afraid.”
“Singing! Do tell! How entrancing!
Well then, vagrant, off! be dancing!”