Excuse, Mr. Bee, this epistle, to one
Whose time, from the earliest gleam of the sun
Till he sinks in the west, is so busily spent,
That I fear I intrude;—but I write with intent
To save your whole city from pillage and ruin,
And to warn you in time of a plot that is brewing.
Last night, when, as usual, enjoying the hour
When the gloaming had spread, and a trickling shower
Was beading the grass as it silently fell,
And day with reluctance was bidding farewell;
When down by yon hedge, nearly opposite you,
And your City of Honey, as proudly I threw
The rays from my lamp in a magical round;
I listened, alarmed upon hearing the sound
Of human intruders approaching more near;
But I presently found I had nothing to fear,
For the hedge was between us, and I and my gleam
Lay hid from their view: when the following scheme
I heard, as they sheltered beneath the old tree,
And send you each creature's own words, Mr. Bee:—
"See, Jack, there it is; now suppose you and I,
With a spade and some brimstone, should each of us try
Some night, when we're sure all the bees are at rest,
To smother them all, and then dig out the nest."
"I know we can do it," said Jack with delight;
"I can't come to-morrow; but s'pose the next night
We both set about it, if you are inclined;
And then we will halve all the honey we find?"
"Agreed," said the other, "but let us be gone."
And they left me in thought until early this morn;
When I certainly meant, if your worship had stay'd
But a minute or two, till my speech I had made,
To have saved you the reading, as well as the cost
Of a letter by post—but my words were all lost;
For though they were lavished each time you came near,
Or was close overhead, and I thought you should hear,
Yet the buzz of importance, as onward you flew,
Bobbing into each flower the whole meadow through,
So baffled your brains that I let you alone,
For I found that I might as well speak to a drone:
Yet, rather than quietly leave you to fate
(Such a villainous thought never entered my pate),
I send you this letter, composed by the light
Of my silvery lamp in the dead of the night,
And about the same time, and the very same place,
That a few nights ago, when the moon hid her face,
I beheld, nearly hid in the grass as I lay,
And my lamp in full splendour reflecting its ray
In the eye of each dewdrop, the fairies unseen
To all human vision, trip here with their Queen,
To pay me a visit, to dance and to feast;
And their revels continued, till full in the east
The sun tinged the clouds for another bright day,
When each took the warning and bounded away:
'Tis the same at this moment. Farewell, Mr. Hum,
I've extinguished my lamp, for the morning is come.
LETTER XII.
FROM THE PIGEON TO THE PARTRIDGE.
What a long time it is since I received your kind letter about the ripening corn, and the dangers you were presently to be subject to with all your children!
You will think me very idle, or very unfeeling, if I delay answering you any longer; I will therefore tell you some of my own troubles, to convince you that I have had causes of delay, which you can have no notion of until I explain them. You must know, then, that we are subject to more than the random gun-shot in the field, for we are sometimes taken out of our house a hundred at a time, and put into a large basket to be placed in a meadow or spare plat of ground suiting the purpose, there to be murdered at leisure. This they call "shooting from the trap,"[3] and is done in this way: