To bask upon the sunny bed,
The damask flowers to kiss,
To range along the bending shade
Is all thy life of bliss.
Then flutter still thy silken wings,
In rich embroidery drest,
And sport upon the gale that flings
Sweet odors from his vest.
JANE TAYLOR.
CUNNING BEE.
Said a little wandering maiden
To a bee with honey laden,
"Bee, at all the flowers you work,
Yet in some does poison lurk."
"That I know, my little maiden,"
Said the bee with honey laden;
"But the poison I forsake,
And the honey only take."
"Cunning bee with honey laden,
That is right," replied the maiden;
"So will I, from all I meet,
Only draw the good and sweet."
ANON.
GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.
The poetry of earth is never dead!
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the grasshopper's, he takes the lead
In summer luxury; he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever;
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost
The grasshopper's among some grassy hills
JOHN KEATS
PATIENT WEAVERS.
Is a spider an insect? If you have thought so, you have been mistaken. Insects are made up of three distinct parts; they always have six legs, and they breathe through air-tubes along the sides of their bodies.