On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone—
We frolic, while ’tis May.
The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to set off the moral by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy.
[Chapter XI]
Some French Poems about Insects
Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects, with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject. But I did not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a few examples.