THE CAPTIVE BUMBLE-BEE.

In a milk-white prison, with only one

Round window opening to the sun,

Raving and raging in vain despair

Like a wounded lion in his lair,

I have a captive. He can't get out,

For I hold the door with my fingers stout.

"But how can you hold this captive wild,

You, who are only a little child?"

Ay, that's the riddle, how can I, say?

And I had another yesterday..

You'll never guess, I'll have to tell;

You don't read riddles very well.

By the garden-walk I chanced to see

In a foxglove flower a bumble-bee;

And when he was fairly sipping the honey,

I fastened him into this prison funny.

It's long and hollow and flat, you see,

The very jail for a bumble-bee!

Yes, it is a pity to shut him up,

Though his jail is a lovely foxglove cup!

So I 'll toss the flower that I picked, away,

And I won't catch another bee to-day;

For he beats so fiercely his prison-wall,

I know that he doesn't like it at all!

—MRS. KATE UPSON CARLSON