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The secret of thy worth
And wisdom well I know.

"Happy must be the state
Whose ruler heedeth more
The murmurs of the poor

Than flatteries of the great."

The reference to the Song of Songs-also the Song of Solomon and Canticle of Canticles-may require a little explanation. The line "Comely but black withal," is borrowed from a verse of this song "I am black but beautiful, oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." In another part of the song the reason of this blackness is given: "I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." From which we can see that the word black only means dark, brown, tanned by the sun. Perhaps you do not know that as late as the middle of the eighteenth century it was still the custom in England to speak of a person with black hair and eyes as "a black man"-a custom which Charles Lamb had reason to complain of even at a later day. The tents referred to in the text were probably tents made of camel-skin, such as the Arabs still make, and the colour of these is not black but brown. Whether Solomon wrote the so-called song or not we do not know; but the poet refers to a legend that it was written in praise of the beauty of the dark queen who came from Sheba to visit the wisest man of the world. Such is not, however, the opinion of modern scholars. The composition is really dramatic, although thrown into lyrical form, and as arranged by Renan and others it becomes a beautiful little play, of which each act is a monologue. "Sensuous" the poet correctly calls it; for it is a form of praise of woman's beauty in all is details, as appears in such famous verses as these: "How beautiful are thy feet in shoes, O prince's daughter; the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins which feed

among the lilies." But Christianity, instead of dismissing this part of the Bible, interpreted the song mystically-insisting that the woman described meant the church, and the lover, Christ. Of course only very pious people continue to believe this; even the good Whittier preferred the legend that it was written about the Queen of Sheba.

I suppose that I ought to end this lecture upon insect poetry by some quotation to which a moral or philosophical meaning can be attached. I shall end it therefore with a quotation from the poet Gray. The poetry of insects may be said to have first appeared in English literature during the second half of the eighteenth century, so that it is only, at the most, one hundred and fifty years old. But the first really fine poem of the eighteenth century relating to the subject is quite as good as anything since composed by Englishmen upon insect-life in general. Perhaps Gray referred especially to what we call May-flies-those delicate ghostly insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which die on the same day that they are born. He does not specify May-flies, however, and we may consider the moral of the poem quite apart from any particular kind of insects. You will find this reference in the piece entitled "Ode on the Spring," in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. Still is the toiling hand of care:

The panting herds repose:

Yet hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
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.

[graphic]

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. Seeing the insects sporting in the bright weather, but all doomed so soon to die, the poet first thinks:

"Well, men are just like insects after all, in the eternal order of things. Some insects can only creep, while others can fly; some insects can store up honey or grain; some live only a few hours; some live for a season. In like manner, some men are stupid and are unable to succeed in the world; whereas others rise to honour, accumulate wealth, reach honoured old age and see their children prosper. But the end is the same for all men, as it is for the insect,—dust." But then the poet fancies that he hears the voice of the insects reproaching him, and asking him: "What are you yourself, compared with an insect? You are not, perhaps, quite so good as an insect. For the insect at least fulfils its life upon earth; the male finds its female; the honey or the grain is stored up; and the joy of life is found by us. But you-what have you done in this world? You have no

wife; you have no treasures; you have had no real part in the enjoyment of this world. And therefore however you may moralise, perhaps you are not worthy to compare yourself even with the bee or the ant or the dragon-fly that does its little duty in this impermanent state of existence."

CHAPTER XV

ON BIRDS IN ENGLISH POETRY

THE poetry of birds is quite important, for it happens to contain several of the great masterpieces of English lyrical poetry. In point of variety, however, the subject may prove a little disappointing. There are not many different kinds of birds with a special place in English lyrical verse. The best of English poetry treats of the nightingale only. Just as the greater number of our flower poems are about the rose, so the greater number of our bird poems are about the nightingale.

To understand the best poems about the nightingale it is necessary for us to go back for a moment to old Greek mythological poetry, for English poems on that bird are rich in allusions to the Greek story about its origin. If you do not know the story, you can not understand the verses of Matthew Arnold or of Swinburne on the nightingale. Neither can you understand allusions in English literature which are certainly older than the time of Shakespeare.

The story is very horrible; but we must learn it. There was a mythical king of Athens called Pandion; and Pandion had two beautiful daughters, one of whom was named Procne, and the other Philomela. Now it happened that King Pandion was for a time hard beset by strong enemies; and he sent in all haste to the king of Thrace, whose name was Tereus, to help him. Then Tereus helped Pandion, and Pandion gave him in marriage his daughter Procne as a reward; and Tereus took Procne away with him to his own city of Daulis, where she bore him a son called Itys, or Itylus. After a time Procne wanted very much to see again

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