Come, dear Cicada! chirp to all the grove, The nymphs, and Pan, a new responsive strain; That I, in noonday sleep, may steal from love, Reclined beneath this dark o'erspreading plane. Translation of SIR C. A. ELTON THE GRASSHOPPER. FROM THE GREEK OF ANACREON, 600 B. C. Happy insect, what can be Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, The shepherd gladly heareth thee, Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Prophet of the ripen'd year! Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; Phoebus is himself thy sire. To thee, of all things upon earth, Life is no longer than thy mirth. Happy insect! happy thou, Dost neither age nor winter know. But when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, (Voluptuous and wise withal, Epicurean animal!) Satiated with thy summer feast, Thou retir'st to endless rest. Translation of ABRAHAM COWLEY, 1618-1657 INSECTS. These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard, JOIN CLARE. FLOWERS AND INSECTS. Flowers seem, as it were, to impart a portion of their own characteristics to all things that frequent them. This is peculiarly exemplified in the butterfly, which must be regarded, par excellence, as the insect, of flowers, and a flower-like insect, gay and innocent, made after a floral pattern, and colored after floral hues. But even with families which are usually dark and repulsive-that, for instance, of cockroaches, which are for the most part black or brown-the few species which resort to flowers are gayly colored. What a contrast, also, between the dark, loathsome, in-door spiders and their prettily painted green and red, and white and yellow brethren of the fields and gardens, which seek their prey among the flowers; while more striking still is the difference between the wingless, disgusting plague of cities and the elegantly-formed, brightly-colored winged bugs, which are common fre quenters of the parterre. Whether this be imputed to the effect of light, or the breathing influence of a flowery atmosphere, and the tendency of all things to produce their similitudes, there lies beneath the natural fact a moral analogy applicable to ourselves. From "ACHETA DOMESTICA." THE DRAGON-FLY. FROM THE GERMAN. Flutter, flutter gently by, On thy four transparent wings! More than half thy little life, In a dark and dim retreat. Now the nymph, transformed, may roam, Where'er the zephyrs shall invite; Love is now thy envious care- But thy very love is flight. Heedless of thy coming doom, Confide thy offspring to the stream, They, too, may quit their watery cell; Declines to fly, declines to swim: Thou lovely, short-lived sylph, farewell! Translation of W. TAYLOR. JOHANN GOTTFRIED V. HERDER, 1744-1803. TO AN INSECT. I love to hear thine earnest voice, Thou pretty Katydid! Thou mindest me of gentlefolks Old gentlefolks are they; Thou art a female, Katydid! I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, I think there is a knot of you O tell me, where did Katy live, I warrant Katy did no more Dear me! I'll tell you all about And Ann, with whom I used to walk So often down the lane, And all that tore their locks of black. Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, Ah, no! the living oak shall crash, The rock shall rend its rocky base, And thunder down the hill, Before the little Katydid Shall add one word to tell The mystic story of the maid Whose name she knows so well. Peace to the ever-murmuring race! Shall fold in death her feeble wings Then shall she raise her fainting voice, And then the child of future years Shall hear what Katy did. O. W. HOLMES. THE GRASSHOPPER. There is the grasshopper, my summer friend- My soul in search thereof by bank and bower, To climb the steep, and down the blossom drag; Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome, All flying things alike delight have found- Ten thousand insects in the air abound, Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer's sound. JEREMIAH HOLME WIFFIN, 1792-1886. |