LIII.

“For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs,
Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs;
And there in rustling nuptials we espouse,
Smit by the sadness in each other’s eyes;—­
But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies,
And must be courted with the gauds of Spring;
Whilst Youth leans god-like on her lap, and cries,
’What shall we always do, but love and sing?’—­
And Time is reckon’d a discarded thing.”

LIV.

Here in my dream it made me fret to see
How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while
Had blithely jested with calamity,
With mis-timed mirth mocking the doleful style
Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile
To see him so reflect their grief aside,
Turning their solemn looks to have a smile—­
Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide;—­
But soon a novel advocate I spied.

LV.

Quoth he—­“We teach all natures to fulfil
Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet,—­
The bee’s sweet alchemy,—­the spider’s skill,—­
The pismire’s care to garner up his wheat,—­
And rustic masonry to swallows fleet,—­
The lapwing’s cunning to preserve her nest,—­
But most, that lesser pelican, the sweet
And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast,
Its tender pity of poor babes distrest.”

LVI.

“Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins
Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves
From our example; so the spider spins,
And eke the silk-worm, pattern’d by ourselves: 
Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves
Of early bees, and busy toils commence,
Watch’d of wise men, that know not we are elves,
But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense,
And praise our human-like intelligence.”

LVII.

“Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale,
And plaintive dirges the late robins sing,
What time the leaves are scatter’d by the gale,
Mindful of that old forest burying;—­
As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing,
For whom our craft most curiously contrives,
If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing,
To take his honey-bag,—­spare us our lives,
And we will pay the ransom in full hives.”

LVIII.

“Now by my glass,” quoth Time, “ye do offend
In teaching the brown bees that careful lore,
And frugal ants, whose millions would have end,
But they lay up for need a timely store,
And travail with the seasons evermore;
Whereas Great Mammoth long hath pass’d away,
And none but I can tell what hide he wore;
Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day,
In riddling wonder his great bones survey.”