Minnesota mosquito, shown actual size

Bearing bile and oft disease On cloudy days or in the trees To garner as the human’s bane The unhallowed harvest of our veins; Come not hitherward nor nigh Mosquito fell, thou prince of air And of darkness come not by, Or else of thy own doom beware. Equipped to sip from man and beast Without respect of persons any; Like those Christ met amid the deceased, Thy name is Legion, for ye are many! ‘Tis fell, the wind that bringest thee hither And fie on the leaf that givest thee shelter. Get thee hence, ere I thee compact, And mete ten-fold thy tortures back! O die the death and grant reprieve From stabbings of thy needles aught, For none would sigh & none would grieve Wert thou in cobweb’s torture caught. Hark how they swarm In corporate endeavor, Our skins to pierce, Our capillaries sever: Begone evil surgeons; we want not thy blood-letting, And may we never meet with thee, or those of thy begetting!

In spring we sow, at the harvest to mow