METAMORPHOSES. 77 



" Ah ! where were once her golden eyes, 



" Her glittering wings of purple pride ? 

 " Conceal'd beneath a riule disguise, 



" A shapeless mass to earth allied, 



" Like thee the hapless reptile lived, 



" Like thee he toil'd, like thee he spun, 

 " Like thine his closing hour arrived, 



" His labour ceased, his web was done, 



" And shalt thou, number'd with the dead, 



*' No happier state of being know? 

 " And shall no future morrow shed 



" On thee a beam of brighter glow? 



" Is this the bound of power divine, 



" To animate an insect frame ? 

 " Or shall not He who moulded thine 



" Wake at his will the vital flame ? 



*' Go, mortal ! in thy reptile state, 



" Enough to know to thee is given ; 

 " Go, and the joyful truth relate ; 



" Frail child of earth ! high heir of heaven !" 



A question here naturally presents itself — Why are 



insects subject to these changes ? For what end is it 



that, instead of preserving like other animals* the same 



general form from infancy to old age, they appear at one 



period under a shape so different from that which they 



finally assume ; and why should they pass through an 



intermediate state of torpidity so extraordinary ? I can 



only answer that such is the will of the Creator, who 



^ A few vertebrate animals, viz. frogs, toads, and newts, undergo 

 metamorphoses in some respects analogous to those of insects; their 

 first form as tadpoles being very different from that which they after- 

 wards assume. These reptiles too, as well as snakes, cast their skin 

 by an operation somewhat similar to that in larvee. There is nothing, 

 however, in their metamorphoses at all resembling the /)?//;« state 

 in insects. 



