They work their waxen lodgings in their hives,
And labour honey to sustain their lives.
But when thou seest a swarming cloud arise,
That sweeps aloft, and darkens all the skies,
The motions of their hasty flight attend;
And know, to floods or woods, their airy march they bend.
Then melfoil beat, and honey-suckles pound;
With these alluring savours strew the ground;
And mix with tinkling brass, the cymbals droning sound.
Straight to their ancient cells, recalled from air,
The reconciled deserters will repair.
But, if intestine broils alarm the hive
(For two pretenders oft for empire strive),
The vulgar in divided factions jar;
And murmuring sounds proclaim the civil war.
Inflamed with ire, and trembling with disdain,
Scarce can their limbs their mighty souls contain.
With shouts, the coward’s courage they excite,
And martial clangours call them out to fight:
With hoarse alarms the hollow camp rebounds,
That imitate the trumpet’s angry sounds:
Then to their common standard they repair;
The nimble horsemen scour the fields of air;
In form of battle drawn, they issue forth,
And every knight is proud to prove his worth.
Prest for their country’s honour and their king’s,
On their sharp beaks they whet their pointed stings,
And exercise their arms, and tremble with their wings.
Full in the midst the haughty monarchs ride;
The trusty guards come up, and close the side;
With shouts the daring foe to battle is defied.
Thus in the season of unclouded spring,
To war they follow their undaunted king;
Crowd through their gates; and, in the fields of light,
The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight.
Headlong they fall from high, and wounded wound;
And heaps of slaughtered soldiers bite the ground.
Hard hail-stones lye not thicker on the plain,
Nor shaken oaks such showers of acorns rain.
With gorgeous wings, the marks of sovereign sway,
The two contending princes make their way;
Intrepid through the midst of danger go,
Their friends encourage, and amaze the foe.
With mighty souls in narrow bodies prest,
They challenge, and encounter breast to breast;
So fixed on fame, unknowing how to fly,
And obstinately bent to win or die,
That long the doubtful combat they maintain,
Till one prevails—for only one can reign.
Yet all these dreadful deeds, this deadly fray,
A cast of scattered dust will soon allay,
And undecided leave the fortune of the day.
When both the chiefs are sundered from the fight,
Then to the lawful king restore his right;
And let the wasteful prodigal be slain,
That he, who best deserves, alone may reign.
With ease distinguished is the regal race:
One monarch wears an honest open face:
Shaped to his size, and godlike to behold,
His royal body shines with specks of gold,
And ruddy scales; for empire he designed,
Is better born, and of a nobler kind.
That other looks like nature in disgrace:
Gaunt are his sides, and sullen is his face;
And like their grisly prince appear his gloomy race,
Grim, ghastly, rugged, like a thirsty train
That long have traveled through a desert plain,
And spet from their dry chaps the gather’d dust again.
The better brood, unlike the bastard crew,
Are marked with royal streaks of shining hue;
Glittering and ardent, though in body less:
From these, at ’pointed seasons, hope to press
Huge heavy honeycombs, of golden juice,
Not only sweet, but pure, and fit for use,
To allay the strength and hardness of the wine,
And with old Bacchus new metheglin join.
But, when the swarms are eager of their play,
And loathe their empty hives, and idly stray,
Restrain the wanton fugitives, and take
A timely care to bring the truants back.
The task is easy—but to clip the wings
Of their high-flying arbitrary kings.
At their command, the people swarm away:
Confine the tyrant, and the slaves will stay.
Sweet gardens, full of saffron flowers, invite
The wandering gluttons, and retard their flight—
Besides the god obscene, who frights away,
With his lath sword, the thieves and birds of prey,
With his own hand, the guardian of the bees,
For slips of pines may search the mountain trees,
And with wild thyme and savory plant the plain,
Till his hard horny fingers ache with pain;
And deck with fruitful trees the fields around,
And with refreshing waters drench the ground.
Now, did I not so near my labours end,
Strike sail, and hastening to the harbour tend,
My song to flowery gardens might extend—
To teach the vegetable arts, to sing
The Paestan roses, and their double spring;
How succory drinks the running streams, and how
Green beds of parsley near the river grow;
How cucumbers along the surface creep,
With crooked bodies, and with bellies deep—
The late narcissus, and the winding trail
Of bear’s-foot, myrtles green, and ivy pale:
For, where with stately towers Tarentum stands,
And deep Galaesus soaks the yellow sands,
I chanced an old Corycian swain to know,
Lord of few acres, and those barren too,
Unfit for sheep or vines, and more unfit to sow;
Yet, labouring well his little spot of ground,
Some scattering pot-herbs here and there he found,
Which cultivated with his daily care,
And bruised with vervain, were his frugal fare.
Sometimes white lilies did their leaves afford,
With wholesome poppy-flowers, to mend his homely board;
For, late returning home, he supped at ease,
And wisely deemed the wealth of monarchs less:
The little of his own, because his own, did please.
To quit his care, he gathered, first of all
In spring the roses, apples in the fall;
And, when cold winter split the rocks in twain,
And ice the running rivers did restrain,
He stripped the bear’s-foot of its leafy growth,
And, calling western winds, accused the spring of sloth.
He therefore first among the swains was found
To reap the product of his laboured ground,
And squeeze the combs with golden liquor crowned.
His limes were first in flowers; his lofty pines,
With friendly shade, secured his tender vines.
For every bloom his trees in spring afford,
An autumn apple was by tale restored.
He knew to rank his elms in even rows,
For fruit the grafted pear-tree to dispose,
And tame to plums the sourness of the sloes.
With spreading planes he made a cool retreat,
To shade good fellows from the summer’s heat.
But, straitened in my space, I must forsake
This task, for others afterwards to take.
Describe we next the nature of the bees,
Bestowed by Jove for secret services,
When, by the tinkling sound of timbrels led,
The king of heaven in Cretan caves they fed.
Of all the race of animals, alone
The bees have common cities of their own,
And common sons; beneath one law they live,
And with one common stock their traffic drive.
Each has a
