“While the whole world with provisions is filled,
Who would keep toiling and toiling, to build
And lay in a store for himself, till he’s killed
  With work that another might do? 
Come! drop your budget, and just give a spring;
Jump on a grass-blade, and balance and swing;
Soon you’ll be light as a gnat on the wing,
  Gay as a grasshopper, too!”

Ant trudged along, while the grasshopper sung,
Minding her business and holding her tongue,
Until she got home her own people among;
  But these were her thoughts on the road. 
“What will become of that poor, idle one
When the light sports of the summer are done? 
And, where is the covert to which he may run
  To find a safe winter abode?

“Oh! if I only could tell him how sweet
Toil makes my rest and the morsel I eat,
While hope gives a spur to my little black feet,
  He’d never pity my lot! 
He’d never ask me my burden to drop,
To join in his folly—­to spring, and to hop;
And thus make the ant and her labor to stop,
  When time, I am certain, would not.

“When the cold frost all the herbage has nipped,
When the bare branches with ice-drops are tipped,
Where will the grasshopper then be, that skipped
  So careless and lightly to-day? 
Frozen to death! ‘a sad picture,’ indeed,
Of reckless indulgence and what must succeed,
That all his gymnastics can’t shelter or feed,
  Or quicken his pulse into play!

“I must prepare for a winter to come,
I shall be glad of a home and a crumb,
When my frail form out of doors would be numb,
  And I in the snow-storm should die. 
Summer is lovely, but soon will be past. 
Summer has plenty not always to last. 
Summer’s the time for the ant to make fast
  Her stores for a future supply!”

=The Rose-Bud of Autumn=

Come out—­pretty Rose-Bud,—­my lone, timid one! 
Come forth from thy green leaves, and peep at the sun! 
For little he does, in these dull autumn hours,
At height’ning of beauty, or laughing with flowers.

His beams, on thy tender young cheek as he plays,
Will give it a blush that no other could raise: 
Thy fine silken petals they’ll softly unfold,
Thy pure bosom filling with spices and gold!

I would not instruct thee in coveting wealth;
Yet beauty, we know, is the offspring of health;
And health, the fair daughter of freedom! is bright
From drinking the breezes, and feasting on light.

Then, come, little gem, from thy covert look out;
And see what the glad, golden sun is about! 
His shafts, do they strike thee, new charms will impart,
Thy form making fairer, and richer, thy heart.

Occasion, sweet Bud, is for thee and for me: 
This hour it may give what again ne’er shall be. 
O, let not the sunshine of life pass away,
Nor touch both our eye and our heart with its ray!