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On the meadow, with dew so gray,

Saw I thee, thou busy, busy Bee.

Thou wert working late, thou busy, busy Bee!
After the fall of the cistus flower;

When the primrose of evening was ready to burst,
I heard thee last as I saw thee first;

In the silence of the evening hour,
Heard I thee, thou busy, busy Bee.

Thou art a miser, thou busy, busy Bee!
Late and early at employ;

Still on thy golden stores intent,

Thy summer in heaping and hoarding is spent
What thy winter will never enjoy ;

Wise lesson this for me, thou busy, busy Bee.

Little dost thou think, thou busy, busy Bee!
What is the end of thy toil.

When the latest flowers of the ivy are gone,
And all thy work for the year is done,

Thy master comes for the spoil:

Woe then for thee, thou busy, busy Bee!

Robert Southey.

TO A BUTTERFLY.

STAY near me; do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!

TO THE CICADA.

Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee,

Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A

very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey-with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;

But she, God love her! feared to brush

The dust from off its wings.

49

William Wordsworth.

TO THE CICADA.

CICADA! drunk with drops of dew,
What musician equals you,
In the shady solitude?

On a perch amidst the wood,
Scraping to your heart's desire
Dusky sides with notchy feet,
Shrilling, thrilling, fast and sweet,
Like the music of a lyre.
Dear Cicada! I entreat,

Sing the Dryads something new;
So from thick-embowered seat,

Pan himself may answer you,

Till every inmost glade rejoices.
With your loud alternate voices:
And I listen, and forget

All the thorns, the doubts and fears,

Love in lover's heart may set;
Listen, and forget them all.

And so, with music in mine ears,
Where the plane-tree shadows steep
The ground with coldness, softly fall
Into a noontide sleep.

William Allingham.

THE WATERFALL.

WHEN the fir-tree dreams in the drowsy haze
Of the motionless August hour;
When even the eagle-leafed aspen droops,
And asleep is the bird in its bower;
Wakeful alone sends the Waterfall then

Its mellow melodious hum,
Wafting a coolness where all is heat,

And music where all is dumb.

In the bloomy May, when the buoyant day

Is breezy and sunny and glad;

When the lithe bough sweeps and the swift brooks leap, And the birds sing and soar as if mad;

Amid this orchestral blithesomeness,

This pean of Spring-time's reign,

The Waterfall's bound fills the scene all round

With its blending, exulting strain.

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