The Bee And The Cuckoo

"Stop, Cuckoo," said the Bee;
"With my labor interferes
That unpleasant voice of thine,
Always ringing in my ears.

There is no bird, in song,
So monotonous as thou.
It is cuckoo all day long,
And nothing but cuckoo!"

"Wearies you, my monotone?"
The Cuckoo straight rejoined;
"So, too, one shape alone,
In thy waxen cells, I find.

If, in the self-same way,
You make a hundred as each one;
If I nothing new can say,
Nothing new by you is done."

This was the Bee's reply:
"A work of usefulness
May lack variety,
And be valued none the less.

But in a work designed
To gratify the taste,
If we no invention find,
Aught else is tedious waste."