These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard, <br />And happy units of a numerous herd <br />Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings, <br />Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings, <br />How merrily they creep, and run, and fly! <br />No kin they bear to labour's drudgery, <br />Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose; <br />And where they fly for dinner no one knows - <br />The dew-drops feed them not - they love the shine <br />Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine <br />All day they're playing in their Sunday dress - <br />When night reposes, for they can do no less; <br />Then, to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly, <br />And like to princes in their slumbers lie, <br />Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all, <br />In silken beds and roomy painted hall. <br />So merrily they spend their summer-day, <br />Now in the corn-fields, now in the new-mown hay. <br />One almost fancies that such happy things, <br />With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings, <br />Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade <br />Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid, <br />Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still, <br />Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.<br /><br />John Clare<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/insects/
