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SELECT POETRY

THE INNOCENT THIEF.
FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE,

Not a flower can be found in the fields,
Or the spot that we till for our pleasure,

From the largest to least, but it yields
The bee, never wearied, a treasure.

Scarce any she quits unexplored,
With a diligence truly exact ;

Yet steal what she may for her hoard,
Leaves evidence none of the fact.

Her lucrative task she pursues,
And pilfers with so much address,
That none of their odour they lose,
Nor charm by their beauty the less.

Not thus inoffensively preys

The canker-worm, indwelling foe !
His voracity not thus allays

The sparrow, the finch, or the crow.

The worm, more expensively fed,
The pride of the garden devours :
And birds peck the seed from the bed,
Still less to be spared than the flowers.

But she, with such delicate skill
Her pillage so fits for her use,

That a chemist in vain with his still!
Would labour the like to produce.

1 Still —a vessel used in distillation, or the process of ex-
trocting the spirit from fiquide.