Ellen Roberts, Verses by the wayside and rhymes for the nursery, Londres, James Nisbet & Co.,1864.

THE CADDIS WORM

New themes still open for my praise
Wherever nature courts my gaze;
Observe this curious patchwork cell
Of stick and straw and tiny shell-
What apt contrivance, and design
Speak an artificer divine,
Who chooses things that men despise.
And with the weak confounds the wise!
Examine well this grotto case;
What strength in weakness we can trace;
Its frail inhabitant a worm
Of slender make and fragile form:
It builds its house as taught of God-
A refuge sure- a safe abode;
But still more singular and strange
Its habits are, and sudden change.
At first a grub in ponds and streams,
Half insect and half worm it seems;
Its head and feet beyond the cell,
The feebler parts within the shell;
But, destined to a brighter fate,
It soon emerges from this state,
No more a reptile to despise,
But clad with wings to range the skies,
This little marvel give God praise,
And glorifies him in its ways:
A happy moral I can see
In its short, wond’rous history.
He who gives skill to form these cells-
A frame-work of cemented shells-
For my protection will provide,
And in his strength my weakness hide.
Strong in that strength I may defy
My soul’s most dreaded enemy,
And laugh to scorn the hostile band,
Hid in the hollow of God’s hand.