THE FLY
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.
If thought is life
And strength & breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;
Am I not
Then am I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A happy fly,
If I live
A man like me?
Or if I die.
William Blake
For I dance,
And drink, & sing.
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
To return to the insects of the downs. Of these flies thrust themselves most on our
attention; it is, in fact, impossible to overlook creatures that conduct themselves in so wildly
eccentric a manner. One big yellow fly like a honey-bee comes directly at you with a loud
hostile hum or buzz, hovers for a few moments, dashes away in a straight line, turns off at a
tangent, and, rushing back again, proceeds with extraordinary velocity to deseribe curves
and cireles, parallel lines, angles, and other geometrie figures, in the air; and finally drops down
within a few inches of you, to remain motionless as a fly carved out of a yellow pebble until
the impulse sends him off again. What his motives are, what it all means, we are unable to
guess; we can only conclude in our ignorance, judging from appearances, that he is mad....
Somewhat of this light-headedness is, I imagine, seen in most of the flies, from the burliest
bluebottle to the small gilded variety. What would it be, I wonder, if these minute creatures
grew to the size of ducks and geese? Our whole time would be spent in watching their amaz-
ing, meaningless anties; nothing else would be talked of or even thought about in the world.
In the end, we should become strictly noeturnal, in order to be out of their way, or else we
should ourselves go mad in their company.
My uncle Toby was a man patient of injuries...[he] had scarce a heart to retaliate
upon a fly.
- Go- says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose,
and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, - and which after infinite attempts, he had caught
at last, as it flew by him; - I'll not hurt thee, says my unele Toby, rising from his chair, and
going across the room, with the fly in his hand,- I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: - Go, says
he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;- go, poor devil, get
thee gone, why should I hurt thee? - This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee
and me.
W. H. Hudson, Nature in Downland
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
