The Highland Weekly News

Poetry.
[For the News]
ALL ABOUT THE BEE
Lately spoken at a School Exhibition, by Master Geo
T. Hempstead, (eliciting great applause) July 18, 1867
at Sinking Spring, O.
Across the stormy ocean came a flock of famished sheep,
They wandered o'er the grassy plain and climbed the
rocky steep,
And every hill and lovely vale were all their own to
keep.
They might have been as happy sheep as ever wore a
bell,
But most were white, while some were black, and
others brown as well.
And how the white sheep used the black it makes one
sad to tell.
They made them eat all bitter herbs. and drink from
filthy pools,
They drove them from the cooling shades when parch-
ing summer rules,
And when the wintry storms came on, they fleeced
them of their wools.
At length a fierce contention rose among the sheep
so white,
They parted into hostile fields and fought a fearful
fight,
When black and brown came marching down and
battled for the Right.
Twas by their aid, in war arrayed, the Right at last
prevails,
Whereon the white concedes the right to black to shake
their tails,
While wolf and dog and fox and hog the poor Black
Sheep assails
With lofty scorn, the battered horn was pointed to
the bears,
Those sturdy flocks, 'mid battle shocks, received be-
neath the stars-
They claim repose from brutal foes-to rest inside
the bars.
Now is it right for sheep that's white to keep the black
one out,
To fall a prey, both night and day, to lurking foes
about?
If not, the wool from all eyes pull, and answer with a
shout!
Oh, baa-a ha! ha! oh, baa-a ha! ha! the White
Sheep now are voting,
And fish and fowl and beasts that howl the contest
now are noting,
While over all whence sun-beams fall, the stars are
ever floating.
N.