French Tales

Fables Of La Fontaine

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Children’s books – Fables Of La Fontaine – Contents
< < < The Horse And The Wolf
The Mountain In Labour > > >

The Ploughman And His Sons

The farmer’s patient care and toil
Are oftener wanting than the soil.

A wealthy ploughman drawing near his end,
Call’d in his sons apart from every friend,
And said, ‘When of your sire bereft,
The heritage our fathers left
Guard well, nor sell a single field.
A treasure in it is conceal’d:
The place, precisely, I don’t know,
But industry will serve to show.
The harvest past, Time’s forelock take,
And search with plough, and spade, and rake;
Turn over every inch of sod,
Nor leave unsearch’d a single clod.’
The father died. The sons–and not in vain–
Turn’d o’er the soil, and o’er again;
That year their acres bore
More grain than e’er before.
Though hidden money found they none,
Yet had their father wisely done,
To show by such a measure,
That toil itself is treasure.

< < < The Horse And The Wolf
The Mountain In Labour > > >

Children’s books – Fables Of La Fontaine – Contents

Copyright holders –  Public Domain Book

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