Thus certain ever-bustling noddies
Are seen in every great affair;
Important, swelling, busy-bodies,
And bores 'tis easier to bear,

Than chase them from their needless care.
-LA FONTAINE

28

INSECT EMBLEM.

CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;
And where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!

Yet thou wert once a worm, a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept !
And such is man; soon from his cell of clay
To burst a seraph in the blaze of day!