(抗议蜗牛)

Ye little snails¹,
With slippery tails,
Who noiselessly travel
Along this gravel²,
By a silvery path of slime unsightly,
I learn that you visit my pea-rows nightly.
Felonious your visit, I guess!
And I give you this warning,
That, every morning,
I'll strictly³ examine the pods;
And if one I hit on,
With slaver or spit on,
Your next meal will be with the gods.
I own you're a very ancient race,
And Greece and Babylon were amid;
You have tenanted many a royal dome⁴,
And dwelt in the oldest pyramid;
The source of the Nile! - O, you have been there!
In the ark was your floodless bed;
On the moonless night of Marathon
You crawled o'er the mighty⁵ dead;
But still, though I reverence⁶ your ancestries⁷,
I don't see why you should nibble⁸ my peas.
The meadows are yours, - the hedgerow and brook⁹,
You may bathe in their dews at morn;
By the aged¹⁰ sea you may sound your shells,
On the mountains erect¹¹ your horn;
The fruits and the flowers are your rightful dowers,
Then why - in the name of wonder -
Should my six pea-rows be the only cause
To excite your midnight plunder¹²!
I have never disturbed your slender shells;
You have hung round my aged walk;
And each might have sat, till he died in his fat,
Beneath his own cabbage-stalk:
But now you must fly from the soil of your sires;
Then put on your liveliest crawl,
And think of your poor little snails at home,
Now orphans¹³ or emigrants¹⁴ all.
Utensils¹⁵ domestic and civil and social
I give you an evening to pack up;
But if the moon of this night does not rise
on your flight,
Tomorrow I'll hang each man Jack¹⁶ up.
You'll think of my peas and your thievish tricks,
With tears of slime, when crossing the Styx.