What am I piping about to-day? _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ What shall I praise in my pastoral way? _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Here I am, smiling, afar from strife, (Indifferent substitute, true, for my wife!) Discussing, as though they'd absorbed my life: _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ A Georgic, my lads, is my task this time, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ HORACE I've Englished in so-so rhyme, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ To-day I am in a Virgilian vein, My pastoral ardour I cannot restrain; And so I will sing, like some Mantuan swain, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Home Rule? Dear me, no! Not at all in the mood! _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ (Though Irish butter, you know, is good.) _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ I hear they're yet wrangling down Westminster way; The "Busy B's" there are still having their say. Now the care of _those_ B's--but that is not _my_ lay. _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ "The frugal bee," (as the Mantuan sings), _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Is valued for honey, and not for stings, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Poor HARCOURT'S hive has a good many drones, And more sting than honey. Eh! Who's that groans? Well, well, let me sing, in mellifluous tones, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ The ladies have taken to speeches of late, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Serious matter, dear friends,--for the State! _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ On Female Suffrage I hardly dote, But ladies may speak, while they have not the vote.-- Beg pardon! That's hardly the pastoral note! _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Not only to flowers we look, but fruits; _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Nay, not to them only, but also to _roots_. _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ The root of the matter, in Irish affairs, Of course is Home Rule--but there, nobody cares For such subjects here! Let's sing poultry, and pears, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ This "little culture"'s the theme I'd touch, _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ (Tories pooh-pooh it!--they've none too much!) _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ But "mickles" soon merge into "muckles" you know, And from "little cultures" big aggregates grow, Just as small majorities--Woa, there, woa!-- _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Hawarden's example will do much good,-- _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ Nay, friends, I am not in a militant mood,-- _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_ So I don't mean _mine_, but your own example. The powers of the soil are abundant and ample; _You_'ll teach men to furnish--and up to sample-- _Butter, and eggs, and the care of bees!_