Cupid once upon a bed
Of roses laid his weary head;
Luckless urchin, not to see
Within the leaves a slumbering bee.
The bee awak’d—with anger wild
The bee awak’d, and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies;
“Oh, Mother! I am wounded through—
I die with pain—in sooth I do!
Stung by some little angry thing,
Some serpent on a tiny wing—
A bee it was—for once, I know,
I heard a rustic call it so.”
Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile;
Then said, “My infant, if so much
Thou feel the little wild bee’s touch,
How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,
The hapless heart that’s stung by thee!”
