Explore "A Short History of Birds & Beasts for the Amusement and Instruction of Children" by Anonymous on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The _Butterfly_ in gaudy dress, / The worthless coxcomb doth express, / Who not regarding whence he rose, / Is proud of what?--of his fine clothes.
This gaudy _Butterfly_ owes its being to a poor worm, and has nothing / to boast of but his fine wings, which perhaps will be lost the first / frosty day: and then his case will be much like the coxcomb's, who / having lost his fine hat and bag wig, has nothing to support him but a / head full of emptiness.