Fly Culture

The Fly (An Anacreontick) - William Oldys (1696-1761)

              Busy, curious, thirsty Fly,
              Gently drink, and drink as I;
              Freely welcome to my Cup,
              Could’st thou sip, and sip it up;
              Make the most of Life you may,
              Life is short and wears away.

              Just alike, both mine and thine,
              Hasten quick to their Decline;
              Thine’s a Summer, mine’s no more,
              Though repeated to threescore;
              Threescore Summers when they’re gone,
              Will appear as short as one.

The Fly (from Songs of Experience) - William Blake (1757 - 1827)

                           Little Fly,
                           Thy summer's play
                           My thoughtless hand
                           Has brushed away.

                           Am not I
                           A fly like thee?
                           Or art not thou
                           A man like me?

                           For I dance
                           And drink, and sing,
                           Till some blind hand
                           Shall brush my wing.

                           If thought is life
                           And strength and breath
                           And the want
                           Of thought is death;

                           Then am I
                           A happy fly,
                           If I live,
                           Or if I die.

The Fly - Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971)

                                         God in his wisdom made the fly
                                         And then forgot to tell us why.

The Cottage Hospital - John Betjeman (1906 - 1984)

     At the end of a long-walled garden in a red provincial town,
     A brick path led to a mulberry - scanty grass at its feet.
     I lay under blackening branches where the mulberry leaves hung down
     Sheltering ruby fruit globes from a Sunday-tea-time heat.
     Apple and plum espaliers basked upon bricks of brown;
     The air was swimming with insects, and children played in the street.

     Out of this bright intentness into the mulberry shade
     Drosophila melanogaster (fruitfly) swung from the August light
     Slap into slithery rigging by the waiting spider made
     Which spun the lithe elastic till the fly was shrouded tight.
     Down came the hairy talons and horrible poison blade
     And none of the garden noticed that fizzing, hopeless fight.

     Say in what Cottage Hospital whose pale green walls resound
     With the tap upon polished parquet of inflexible nurses' feet
     Shall I myself by lying when they range the screens around?
     And say shall I groan in dying, as I twist the sweaty sheet?
     Or gasp for breath uncrying, as I feel my senses drown'd
     While the air is swimming with insects and children play in the street?

     with apologies to Sir John

King Lear : Act 4, Scene VI

The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.
Let copulation thrive...

 

Page updated 26 October 2011