But the first really fine poem of the eighteenth century relating to the subject is quite as good as anything since composed by Englishmen upon insect life in general.

Perhaps Gray referred especially to what we call May-flies--those delicate ghostly insects which hover above water surfaces in fine weather, but which die on the same day that they are born.

He does not specify May-flies, however, and we may consider the moral of the poem quite apart from any particular kind of insect.

You will find this reference in the piece entitled "Ode on the Spring," in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas.
Still is the toiling hand of care: The panting herds repose: Yet hark, how through the peopled air The busy murmur glows! The insect youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honied spring, And float amid the liquid noon: Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gaily-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of man: And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay But flutter through life's little day, In fortune's varying colours dressed: Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by Age, their airy dance They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown; Thy sun is set; thy spring is gone-- We frolic, while 'tis May.
The poet Gray was never married, and the last stanza which I have quoted refers jocosely to himself.

It is an artistic device to set off the moral by a little mockery, so that it may not appear too melancholy..