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Title: The Camel And The Floating Sticks
Author: Jean de La Fontaine [
More Titles by La Fontaine]
The first who saw the humpback'd camel
Fled off for life; the next approach'd with care;
The third with tyrant rope did boldly dare
The desert wanderer to trammel.
Such is the power of use to change
The face of objects new and strange;
Which grow, by looking at, so tame,
They do not even seem the same.
And since this theme is up for our attention,
A certain watchman I will mention,
Who, seeing something far
Away upon the ocean,
Could not but speak his notion
That 'twas a ship of war.
Some minutes more had past,--
A bomb-ketch 'twas without a sail,
And then a boat, and then a bale,
And floating sticks of wood at last!
_Full many things on earth, I wot,_
_Will claim this tale,--and well they may;_
_They're something dreadful far away,_
_But near at hand--they're not._
[The end]
Jean de La Fontaine's poem: Camel And The Floating Sticks
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