Thus from the fern, whose high projecting arms, The fleeting nation bent with dusky swarms, 50 The swains their love in easy music breathe, When tongues and tumult stun the field beneath, Black ants in teams come darkening all the road; Some call to march, and some to lift the load; They strain, they labour with incessant pains, Press'd by the cumbrous weight of single grains. The flies, struck silent, gaze with wonder down: The busy burghers reach their earthy town, Where lay the burdens of a wintry store, And thence, unwearied, part in search of more. 60 Yet one grave sage a moment's space attends, And the small city's loftiest point ascends, Wipes the salt dew that trickles down his face, And thus harangues them with the gravest grace Ye foolish nurslings of the summer air! These gentle tunes and whining songs forbear, Your trees and whispering breeze, your grove and love, Your Cupid's quiver, and his mother's dove; Let bards to business bend their vigorous wing, And sing but seldom, if they love to sing: 70 Else, when the flowerets of the season fail, And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale, Though one would save ye, not one grain of wheat Should pay such songster's idling at my gate. He ceased: the flies, incorrigibly vain, Heard the mayor's speech, and fell to sing again. * * * * * AN ELEGY TO AN OLD BEAUTY. In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night, Your face with patches soil, with paint repair, Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair. If truth in spite of manners must be told, Why, really, fifty-five is something old. Once you were young; or one, whose life's so long, She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong. And once, (since Envy's dead before you die) The women own, you play'd a sparkling eye, 10 Taught the light foot a modish little trip, And pouted with the prettiest purple lip. To some new charmer are the roses fled, Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red; Youth calls the graces there to fix their reign, And airs by thousands fill their easy train. So parting Summer bids her flowery prime Attend the Sun to dress some foreign clime, While withering seasons in succession, here, Strip the gay gardens, and deform the Year. 20