Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/80

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GREAT honey-bee bustled over the lea, Then stopped in a field of white clover To load up his thigh, till he scarcely could fly The wide sloping meadow-land over.

He sneered, as he flew, at the dragon-fly blue, At the swallow so airily winging. The clear, lazy brook, droning tunes in a nook, The bobolink, joyfully singing.

As she went on her way, Cloverhead heard him say, Like a Pharisee noisily praying, "How well it would be, if the creatures like me Worked always, and never were playing !

"Yon stream, with a will should be turning a mill; That dragon-fly, learn to make honey; That pert bobolink, I do really think, If he sings, should be singing for money."

So Busy Bee sped, till he bumped his wise head On a cherry bough whitely in flower; Fresh, dainty, and fair, sat a butterfly there, Like a queen in a summer-laid bower.

"O Butterfly gay, have you aught laid away? Don't you know you're a terrible sinner To idle your time while yet in your prime, Having nothing laid up for your dinner?"