50 FATE OF AIR-BUILT OASTLfeS. 



repeat " buz ! buz ! buz ! ' that a Fly and nothing else was at 

 the bottom of the mystery. Though in its monotony the very 

 same, yet did that last buz sound in the poet's ear as something 

 different to all those that had gone before : they had annoyed, 

 provoked,, angered him, but now the uplifting of that hidden 

 voice absolutely frightened him. To his prostrate spirits just 

 toppled from their unaccustomed height,, it almost sounded 

 ominous of ill. That buz ! buz ! buz ! was like the "woe! woe! 

 woe ! ' denounced in her day of doom against the proud 

 Jerusalem,, not prouder in stately dome and lofty tower, 

 than, of late, his air-built castles. A feeling of sickness came 

 over him, not entirely either from fear of Fly or fear of Fate, 

 but from nothing having passed his lips since the hour of his 

 scanty breakfast even to the present of seven, post meridiem, 

 of the first of Augusl . 



The Faster (fancy fed) seemed at last reminded of this fact, 

 and betook himself, with what appetite he might, to his rigid 

 loaf, his melting butter. He cuts a slice, he proceeds, (hear it, 

 Apollo !) with fingers that have touched thy sacred lyre, to unfold 

 the printed leaf wherein the dissolving condiment lay curtained. 

 But not alone lay that butter in its melting luxury : a ravisher, 

 detained in soft imprisonment, had been feasting on its charms, 

 and now, out he bounces with a buz indeed, and buz ! buz ! ! 

 buz!!! re-echoes round, as a burly Blue-bottle, tipsy with love 

 and jollity, mad at escape from thraldom, or merry at discovery, 

 bangs up and bounces again and again against the unopened, 

 because unopening, half of the garret casement. 



