And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter through life's little day,
In fortune's varying colours dressed:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone--
We frolic, while 'tis May.

The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted
refers jocosely to himself. It is an artistic device to set off the moral
by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy.

CHAPTER XI

SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS

Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects,
with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject. But I did
not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon
the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a
few examples.

Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all the French
literature upon this subject is new. Insect poetry belongs to the newer
and larger age of thought, to the age that begins to perceive the great
truth of the unity of life. We no longer find, even in natural histories,
the insect treated as a mere machine and unthinking organism; on the
contrary its habits, its customs and its manifestation both of
intelligence and instinct are being very carefully studied in these times,
and a certain sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or
admiration, may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men
who write about insect life. So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning to
the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect. It is not
improbable that keeping caged insects as pets may again become a Western
custom, as it was in Greek times, when cages were made of rushes or straw
for the little creatures. I suppose you have heard that the Japanese
custom is very likely to become a fashi