282 INSECT LIFE. 



How they romped and ran about. 

 Like two boys when school is out. 

 With glowing face, and lisping lip, 

 Low laugh, and lifted shout ! 



Over meadow-lands they tripped. 

 Where the dandelions dipped 



In crimson foam of clover-bloom. 

 And dripped and dripped and dripped : 

 And they clinched the bumble-stings. 

 Gauming honey on their wings, 



And bundling them in lily-bells, 

 With maudlin murmurings. 



And the humming-bird, that hung 

 Like a jewel up among 

 The tilted honeysuckle-horns, 

 They mesmerized, and swung 

 In the palpitating air. 

 Drowsed with odors strange and rare. 

 And, with whispered laughter, slipped away 

 And left him hanging there. 



And the golden-banded bees. 

 Droning o'er the flowery leas. 



They bridled, reined, and rode away 

 Across the fragrant breeze. 

 Till in hollow oak and elm 

 They had groomed and stabled them 



In waxen stalls that oozed with dews 

 Of rose and lily-stem. 



Where the dusty highway leads. 

 High above the wayside weeds 



They sowed the air with butterflies 

 Like blooming flower-seeds. 

 Till the dull grasshopper sprung 

 Half a man's height up, and hung 



Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings, 

 And sung and sung and sung ! 



