[Page 330]

The PINE APPLE and the BEE.

1 THE pine apples in triple row,
2 Were basking hot and all in blow,
3 A bee of most discerning taste
4 Perceiv'd the fragrance as he pass'd,
5 On eager wing the spoiler came,
6 And search'd for crannies in the frame,
7 Urg'd his attempt on ev'ry side,
8 To ev'ry pane his trunk applied,
[Page 331]
9 But still in vain, the frame was tight
10 And only pervious to the light.
11 Thus having wasted half the day,
12 He trimmed his flight another way.
13 Methinks, I said, in thee I find
14 The sin and madness of mankind;
15 To joys forbidden man aspires,
16 Consumes his soul with vain desires;
17 Folly the spring of his pursuit,
18 And disappointment all the fruit.
19 While Cynthio ogles as she passes
20 The nymph between two chariot glasses,
21 She is the pine apple, and he
22 The silly unsuccessful bee.
23 The maid who views with pensive air
24 The show-glass fraught with glitt'ring ware,
25 Sees watches, bracelets, rings, and lockets,
26 But sighs at thought of empty pockets,
27 Like thine her appetite is keen,
28 But ah the cruel glass between!
[Page 332]
29 Our dear delights are often such,
30 Expos'd to view but not to touch;
31 The sight our foolish heart inflames,
32 We long for pine apples in frames,
33 With hopeless wish one looks and lingers,
34 One breaks the glass and cuts his fingers,
35 But they whom truth and wisdom lead,
36 Can gather honey from a weed.

Text

  • TEI/XML [chunk] (XML - 67K / ZIP - 7.4K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 1.3K / ZIP - 902 )

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized by the University of California Libraries.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 745K)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): The PINE APPLE and the BEE.
Themes: contentment
Genres: fable

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Cowper, William, 1731-1800. Poems: by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. London: printed for J. Johnson, 1782, pp. 330-332. [4],367,[1]p. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T14895; OTA K027775.000) (Page images digitized by the University of California Libraries.)

Editorial principles

The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by William Cowper