“ ‘Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. The sow, with her broad snout, for rooting up The entrusted seed, was judged to spoil the crop, And intercept the sweating farmer’s hope: The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind, The offender to the bloody priest resign’d: Her hunger was no plea: for that she died. The goat came next in order to be tried: The goat had cropp’d the tendrils of the vine: In vengeance laity and clergy join, Where one had lost his profit, one his wine. Here was at least some shadow of offence; The sheep was sacrificed on no pretence, But meek and unresisting innocence. A patient, useful creature, born to bear The warm and woolly fleece, that clothed her murderer; And daily to give down the milk she bred, A tribute for the grass on which she fed. Living, both food and raiment she supplies, And is of least advantage when she dies.