A youth wished for food from the sky and it fell in such quantity that he had problems showing that even good things come with some trouble.
Jefferys Taylor
SAID a youth to the clouds, as he turn’d up his eyes,
“How I wish soup and pudding were rain’d from the skies!
O! how charming ‘twould be ready cook’d if ‘twould fall,
That so one might dine with no trouble at all.”
And so it fell out, says the fable, at last
That the sky with some odd looking clouds was o’ercast,
And the south wind blew up a most savoury smell,
When direct from the heavens the aliments fell!
Now the pea-soup and pudding descended amain,
Till it pour’d from the mountains and deluged the plain;
The pigs were astonish’d; yet did not forget,
Like our youth, while they wonder’d, that now they might eat.
“However, thought he, “I will benefit by it;
So he took up a piece of plum-pudding to try it;
But, alas, he could not even swallow a bit,
For he found it was covered with gravel and grit.
Who’d have thought it, when pudding was rain’d from the skies,
That it yet would be needful some plan to devise,
And some trouble to take to accomplish his wish;
For now, ere he dined, he must hold up his dish.
But this dish was not fill’d quite so soon as he thought,
So that both his arms ached ere enough he had caught;
But something soon happened, more dismal by half,
At which you’ll have two much good nature to laugh;
For a large piece of pudding, of more than a pound,
Knock’d the dish from the hands of our youth to the ground;
“Well,” said he, “I have play’d long enough at this game,
Let it rain what it will, it comes all to the same;
Good things, how abundant soever they be,
One can never obtain without trouble, I see.”