50 FATE OF AIR-BUILT CASTLES. 



ever, to 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 I was like the 

 " wo ! wo ! wo !" 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 August. 



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 I buz ! ! buz I ! ! 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. 



