The wall-trees are laden with fruit; <br />The grape, and the plum, and the pear, <br />The peach and the nectarine, to suit <br />Every taste, in abundance are there. <br /> <br /> <br />Yet all are not welcome to taste <br />These kind bounties of Nature; for one <br />From her open-spread table must haste <br />To make room for a more favoured son: <br /> <br /> <br />As that wasp will soon sadly perceive, <br />Who has feasted awhile on a plum; <br />And, his thirst thinking now to relieve, <br />For a sweet liquid draught he is come. <br /> <br /> <br />He peeps in the narrow-mouthed glass, <br />Which depends from a branch of the tree; <br />He ventures to creep down,-alas! <br />To be drowned in that delicate sea. <br /> <br /> <br />'Ah say,' my dear friend, 'is it right <br />These glass bottles are hung upon trees? <br />Midst a scene of inviting delight <br />Should we find such mementos as these?' <br /> <br /> <br />'From such sights,' said my friend, 'we may draw <br />A lesson, for look at that bee; <br />Compared with the wasp which you saw, <br />He will teach us what we ought to be. <br /> <br /> <br />'He in safety industriously plies <br />His sweet honest work all the day, <br />Then home with his earnings he flies; <br />Nor in thieving his time wastes away.'- <br /> <br /> <br />'O hush, nor with fables deceive,' <br />I replied, 'which, though pretty, can ne'er <br />Make me cease for that insect to grieve, <br />Who in agony still does appear. <br /> <br /> <br />'If a simile ever you need, <br />You are welcome to make a wasp do; <br />But you ne'er should mix fiction indeed <br />With things that are serious and true.'<br /><br />Charles Lamb<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wasps-in-a-garden/
