THE MAY FLY. 133 



alas ! no more. And I must soon follow 

 them ; for by the course of nature, though 

 still in health, I cannot expect to live above 

 seven or eight minutes longer : what now 

 avails all my toil and labour, in amassing 

 honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live 

 to enjoy ! What the political struggles I 

 have been engaged in for the good of my 

 compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my 

 philosophical studies for the benefit of our 

 race in general ! for in politics (what can 

 laws do without morals ?), our present race 

 of Ephemera will, in a course of minutes, 

 become corrupt, like those of other and older 

 bushes, and consequently as wretched ; and 

 in philosophy how small our progress ! Alas ! 

 art is long, and life is short ! My friends 

 would comfort me with the idea of a name, 

 they say I shall leave behind me, and they 

 tell me I have lived long enough to nature 

 and to glory. But what will fame be to an 

 Ephemera who no longer exists ? And what 

 will become of all history in the eighteenth 

 hour, when the world itself, even the whole 

 Moulin JoH, shall come to its end, and be 

 buried in an universal ruin ?^^ 



