O MAMMA dear, just listen!

I ran away, you know;

I saw the grasses glisten,

A-bowing to me so.

The clovers shook their pink heads too—

You wouldn't care I ran away,

If how they did you only knew!

And I was dressed as much as they—

They didn't mind a bit—and Oh,

I saw there, fastened to the grass

With little shiny ropes of glass.

A spider's web! Mamma, you know

You've always said that spiders ate

For breakfast little frightened flies,

For which they long had laid in wait,

A-watching with their cruel eyes—

Original

Well, mamma, in that spider's web-

Somebody told it wrong to you—

There wasn't any fly at all!

Mamma, you will believe it's true;

Everything for breakfast there

Was clover-tops and drops of dew!"