THE CAPTIVE BUMBLE-BEE.
In a milk-white prison, with only one
Round window opening to the sun,
Raving and raging in vain despair
Like a wounded lion in his lair,
I have a captive. He can't get out,
For I hold the door with my fingers stout.
"But how can you hold this captive wild,
You, who are only a little child?"
Ay, that's the riddle, how can I, say?
And I had another yesterday..
You'll never guess, I'll have to tell;
You don't read riddles very well.
By the garden-walk I chanced to see
In a foxglove flower a bumble-bee;
And when he was fairly sipping the honey,
I fastened him into this prison funny.
It's long and hollow and flat, you see,
The very jail for a bumble-bee!
Yes, it is a pity to shut him up,
Though his jail is a lovely foxglove cup!
So I 'll toss the flower that I picked, away,
And I won't catch another bee to-day;
For he beats so fiercely his prison-wall,
I know that he doesn't like it at all!