Story Time

Sandy treasure found on the beach. I've nerded out and found the backstory of the verse via google. It's very old. A snippet from "Divine songs attempted in easy language for the use of children", a book of moralistic guidance/finger wagging for children written in 1715 by Isaac Watts. Watt wrote hymns too, including "Joy to the World" which is, admitedly, a banging tune, even to a non-church person (wretch?) like me.

I think Isaac's "Devine Songs for Children" might have been the Peter and Jane or Biff and Chip of its day. For 200 years it remained the standard text book in schools. Charles Dickinson quoted it 135 years later in David Copperfield. Lewis Caroll parodied it 150 years later in Alice in Wonderland when Alice rif's on it with her "Doth the little crocodile". Then in the late 1890s an opera referenced it not in an altogether nice way. Poor Isaac. I think they were probably all fed up of it by then, just as i reached my limit of The Magic Key stories my kids brought home from school. Or maybe the constant retelling of the much older Aesops Fables (1464??!!) better stood the test of time. Anyway, Isaac's wee verse is supposed to teach children all about the importance of hard work and is called...

Against Idleness and Mischief

and it goes a little something like this....

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

Isaac Watts 1674-1748

I'd happily spend hours idly watching natures finest buzzing about, which probably wouldn't best please Isaac.