1. I thought I heard a butterfly
2. Say to a laboring bee:
3. “You have no colors of the sky
4. On painted wings like me.”
5. “Poor child of vanity1! Those dyes
6. And colors bright and rare,”
7. With mild scolding, the bee replies,
8. “Are all beneath my care.
9. Content I work from morn to eve,
10. And hating idleness2
11. To tribes of showy sloth3 I leave
12. The vanity of dress.”
Meanings
2 idleness: doing nothing
