Cockroaches that crawl have been many, Mosquitos that bite have been micro, In the meeting-house bats are prolific, On the ceilings are lizards galore.
On the walls do the spiders disport them, Little ants sometimes get at the cake, Shiny bluebottles plunge for the jam-jar The cicadas, what screechings they make The bull-frogs croak away in the rice-fields, Brain-fever birds warble all night, Flocks of crows in the evenings come cawing,"
And the lamp lures the moths to its light.
'The lone owl through the darkness is hooting, And the glow-worm displays his wee spark From far off comes the voice of a' pussy, Day and night dogs incessantly bark.
There are pigs,—we can see them and hear them; There are cocks,—they awake us betimes. When the hen lays an egg, how she cackles, Like the bard, perpetrating his rhymes!
Lovely butterflies glint in the sunshine, And the dragonflies hover around But the beetles—their name it is Legion And the creepy-crawls nameless abound.
There is never a pause in their chorus; Some awake while the others repose. All the summer the din is persistent, And the clamour goes on to the close.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.