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
In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill ;
'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread,
Nature self's thy Ganymede.

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king!
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants belong to thee;
All that summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice.
Man for thee does sow and plow;
Farmer he, and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently enjoy;
Nor does thy luxury destroy.

The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.

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,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing summer brings;
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings;
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labor's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose,
And where they fly for dinner no one knows;
The dew-drop feeds them not; they love the shine
Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress-
When night reposes they can do no less;
Then to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers, lie
Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all
On silken beds in roomy, painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Or in the corn-fields, or in new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With colored hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid;
Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

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,
Little motley dragon-fly,

On thy four transparent wings!
Hover, hover o'er the rill,
And when weary, sit thee still,
Where the water-lily springs.

More than half thy little life,
Free from passion, free from strife,
Underneath the wave was sweet;
Cool and calm, content to dwell,
Shrouded by thy pliant shell

In a dark and dim retreat.

Now the nymph, transformed, may roam,
A sylph in her aerial home,

Where'er the zephyrs shall invite;

Love is now thy envious care-
Love that dwells in sunny air-

But thy very love is flight.

Heedless of thy coming doom,
O'er thy birthplace and thy tomb
Flutter, little mortal, still!
Though beside thy gladdest hour,
Fate's destroying mandates lower-
Length of life but lengthens ill.

Confide thy offspring to the stream,
That when new summer suns shall gleam,

They, too, may quit their watery cell;
Then die! I see each weary limb

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,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy, little dogmatist,

Thou pretty Katydid!

Thou mindest me of gentlefolks

Old gentlefolks are they;
Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.

Thou art a female, Katydid!

I know it by the trill

That quivers through thy piercing notes,
So petulant and shrill.

I think there is a knot of you
Beneath the hollow tree-
A knot of spinster Katydids-
Do Katydids drink tea?

O tell me, where did Katy live,
And what did Katy do?
And was she very fair and young,
And yet so wicked, too?
Did Katy love a naughty man,
Or kiss more cheeks than one?

I warrant Katy did no more
Than many a Kate has done.

Dear me! I'll tell you all about
My fuss with little Jane,

And Ann, with whom I used to walk

So often down the lane,

And all that tore their locks of black.
Or wet their eyes of blue-

Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid,
What did poor Katy do?

Ah, no! the living oak shall crash,
That stood for ages still;

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!
And when the latest one

Shall fold in death her feeble wings
Beneath the autumn sun,

Then shall she raise her fainting voice,
And lift her drooping lid;

And then the child of future years

Shall hear what Katy did.

O. W. HOLMES.

THE GRASSHOPPER.

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend-
The minute sound of many a sunny hour
Passed on a thymy hill, when I could send

My soul in search thereof by bank and bower,
Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,
Nodding too dangerously above the crag,
Not to excite the passion and the power

To climb the steep, and down the blossom drag;
Then the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.

Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,
Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,
And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam,
He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,
'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;

All flying things alike delight have found-
Where'er I gaze, to what new region turn,

Ten thousand insects in the air abound,

Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer's sound. JEREMIAH HOLME WIFFIN, 1792-1886.