And must we toil through summer's sultry hours,
And death, a cruel death, be our reward?
Tell, if thou canst, what crime, what fault of ours,
Tyrannic man, deserves a fate so hard.

For us no creatures are condemned to bleed,
And lift in vain the pity-asking eye;
The flow'rets scattered o'er the verdant mead,
And dews of heaven, our guiltless feast supply.

"Tis true, protection thy warm hives afford,

For which a portion of our wealth be thine; With liberal hand take of our luscious hoardSpare, spare our lives! our treasures we resign.

Oh! may the man who, deaf to pity's call,
Condemns us, helpless, to devouring flame,
Find all his honey turned to bitterest gall,
While wax impure provokes his frugal dame.

If e'er soft slumber seal his weary eyes,

When night and silence hold their gloomy sway, May glaring ghosts of murdered bees arise, Buzz round his bed, and frighten sleep away.

But thou who dost our humble race befriend,
May smiling peace for ever glad thy breast—
May balmy sleep, unsought, thy couch attend,
And grateful visions lull thy soul to rest.

MARGERY GRAY;

OR, THE WITCH UNMASKED.

Why stands that old cottage, so lonely and drear
That it fills the beholder with gloom and affright?
And what is the reason that none can go near

The door of that hut, without shivering, at night?

To see the old woman who lives there alone,

One would think she could hardly do any great harm: Why, her body is shriveled to mere skin and bone, And scarcely more thick than a broomstick her arm!

The cottage is small, but sufficient to hold

A fire-place, table, and dresser, and bed;

The cracks, filled with mud, admit scarce any cold,
And a few cedar slabs stop the leaks over head :

And it's well 't is so tight--for now not a tool
Would be handled by any to mend her abode ;
And though by the door is the best way to school,
The master and children all go the high road.

Yet once they delighted to travel that way,

And would beg for permission, whene'er they went by, To take something good to old Margery Gray—

A few links of sausage, or piece of mince-pie.

She gathers old stumps in the summer for fuel,

And no one has stopped her, as yet, that I 've heard; Indeed, to prevent her were foolishly cruel,

For every one wishes his fields to be cleared.

Time was she had pine-knots to last her all winter-
They served her to spin and to knit by at night;
But now, not a creature would bring her a splinter,
If they knew she was dying for want of a light.

There's not the least shelter, as any can tell,

To keep from her window the snow and the hail ; And even the peach tree, that grew by the well,

Is dead, and its withered limbs sigh in the gale.

It is true, that, to fence her poor cow from the weather,
She took out her hatchet one bitter cold day,

And cut some pine bushes, and piled them together
By the side of her little coarse bundle of hay;

Her fence, by the wind and by time, is o'erthrown-
Indeed, there is hardly a rail on the place;
And the garden, with nettles and mullens o'ergrown,
Looks as dull and as cheerless as Margery's face.

But it did not look thus in the days of her prime

The fence was in order, the garden was neat; She had chamomile, lavender, hyssop, and thyme,

And more sage than she wanted to season her meat :

And she dried a good deal, and the neighbours all round Would send to her cottage, if any were ill;

She was skilled in the nature of herbs, and they found That she gave her assistance with hearty good will.

It was owned, by the people that happened to pass,

That her room was as cleanly as cleanly could beYou might put on your cap by her pewter and brass, And her bed was as decent as most that you'll see ;

But their present condition no mortal can tell,
For none are so simple to darken her door;
No, no!-all the neighbours remember too well
The horrible tale of the blood on the floor.

It was midnight, and cold did the bitter wind blow,
And drove in fierce eddies the snow and the hail,
When a stranger to Margery's cottage came slow-
Like a ghost he seemed troubled, was silent and pale.

Long beat by the tempest, so chilled and so tired,
That his feet and his fingers he hardly could use ;
To warm them a little was all he desired--
So trifling a favour could any refuse?

The air was so piercing, that people that night,

In the tightest of houses could scarcely keep warm ; And the neighbours came over, as soon as 't was light, To enquire how old Margery fared in the storm.

But how did astonishment bristle their hair,

When blood they saw sprinkled profusely around; The legs of the stranger, all mangled, were there, But the rest of his body was not to be found.

The blood of the traveller was every where thrown-
On the hearth, on the floor, on the table it lay:
And to every one there it was very well known
Not a creature was with him but Margery Gray.

And none could imagine the man would admire (If left to pursue what appeared to him right) The notion of leaving his legs by the fire,

And traveling on stumps such a terrible night.

Till that night of horror old Margery never
Was known to discover a relish for sin ;
But now she is hatching some mischief for ever-
"T is hard to give over when once we begin.

She meazles the swine, and she pesters the cattle,
She fly-blows the meat, and the harvest she blights;
In the midst of a tempest, at windows she 'll rattle,
And keeps her sick neighbours from sleeping at nights.