Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/136

 greatly exceeds it; but the covering which they put on before this mutation is poor and mean, when compared to that golden tissue in which the silk-worm wraps itself. They, indeed, come forth in a variety of colors, their wings bedropped with gold and scarlet, yet are they but the beings of a summer's day; both their life and beauty quickly vanish, and they leave no remembrance after them; but the silk-worm leaves behind it such beautiful, such beneficial monuments, as at once to record both the wisdom of their Creator and his bounty to man."

We may without impropriety, here introduce the following truly beautiful comparison of the shortness of human life, as well as in illustration of this part of our subject, as evidenced in the May-fly.

"The angler's May-fly, the most short-lived in its perfect state of any of the insect race, emerges from the water, where it passes its aurelia state, about six in the evening, and dies about eleven at night."— Selborne.

The sun of the eve was warm and bright When the May-fly burst his shell, And he wanton'd awhile in that fair light O'er the river's gentle swell; And the deepening tints of the crimson sky Still gleam'd on the wing of the glad May-fly.

The colors of sunset pass'd away, The crimson and yellow green, And the evening-star's first twinkling ray In the waveless stream was seen; Till the deep repose of the stillest night Was hushing about his giddy flight.

The noon of the night is nearly come— There's a crescent in the sky;— The silence still hears the myriad hum Of the insect revelry. The hum has ceas'd—the quiet wave Is now the sportive Mayfly's grave.

Oh! thine was a blessed lot—to spring In thy lustihood to air, And sail about, on untiring wing, Through a world most rich and fair, To drop at once in thy watery bed, Like a leaf that the willow branch has shed.