Then build wax kingdoms for the infant prince,
And form a palace for his refidence.
But often in their journeys, as they fly,
On flints they tear their filken wings, or lie
Groveling beneath their flowery load, and die.
Thus love of honey can an infect fire,
And in a fly fuch generous thoughts inspire.
Yet by repeopling their decaying state,
Though seven short springs conclude their vital date,
Their ancient stocks eternally remain,
And in an endless race their childrens children reign.
No proftrate vaffal of the East can more
With flavish fear his mighty Prince adore;
His life unites them all; but when he dies,
All in loud tumults and diftractions rife;
They waste their honey, and their combs deface,
And wild confufion reigns in every place.
Him all admire, all the great guardian own,
And crowd about his courts, and buzz about his throne.
Oft on their backs their weary prince they bear,
Oft in his caufe embattled in the air,
Pursue a glorious death, in wounds and war.
Some from fuch inftances as thefe have taught, "The bees extract is heavenly; for they thought "The univerfe alive; and that a foul,
"Diffus'd throughout the matter of the whole, "To all the vast unbounded frame was given,
"And ran through earth, and air, and fea, and all "the deep of heaven;
"That this first kindled life in man and beast,
"Life that again flows into this at last.
"That no compounded animal could die,
"But when diffolv'd, the spirit mounted high,
"Dwelt in a ftar, and fettled in the sky."
When-e'er their balmy fweets you mean to feize,
And take the liquid labours of the bees,
Spurt draughts of water from your mouth, and drive
A lothfome cloud of smoke amidst their hive.
Twice in the year their flowery toils begin,
And twice they fetch their dewy harvest in;
Once when the lovely Pleiades arise,
And add fresh luftre to the summer skies:
And once when haftening from the watery fign
They quit their station, and forbear to shine.
The bees are prone to rage, and often found
To perish for revenge, and die upon the wound,
Their venom'd fting produces aking pains,
And fwells the flesh, and fhoots among the veins.
When first a cold hard winter's storms arrive,
And threaten death or famine to their hive,
If now their finking state and low affairs
Can move your pity, and provoke your cares,
Fresh burning thyme before their cells convey,
And cut their dry and husky wax away;
For often lizards feize the luscious spoils,
Or drones that riot on another's toils :
Oft broods of moths infeft the hungry fwarms,
And oft the furious wafp their hive alarms
With louder hums, and with unequal arms;
Or else the spider at the entrance fets
Her fnares, and spins her bowels into nets.
When fickness reigns (for they as well as we Feel all th' effects of frail mortality)
By certain marks the new disease is seen,
Their colour changes, and their looks are thin,
Their funeral rites are form'd, and every bee
With grief attends the fad folemnity;
The few diseas'd furvivors hang before
Their fickly cells, and droop about the door,
Or flowly in their hives their limbs unfold,
Shrunk up with hunger, and benumb'd with cold
In drawling hums the feeble infects grieve,
And doleful buzzes echo through the hive,
Like winds that foftly murmur through the trees,
Like flames pent up, or like retiring feas.
Now lay fresh honey near their empty rooms,
In troughs of hollow reeds, whilft frying gums-
Caft round a fragrant mift of spicy fumes.
Thus kindly tempt the famifl'd fwarm to eat,
And gently reconcile them to their meat.
Mix juice of galls, and wine, that grow in time
Condens'd by fire, and thicken to a slime;
To these dry'd rofes, thyme, and centaury join,
And raisins ripen'd on the Psythian vine.
Befides there grows a flower in marshy ground,,
Its name Amellus, easy to be found ;
A mighty fpring works in its root, and cleaves
The fprouting ftalk, and fhews itself in leaves;,
The flower itself is of a golden hue,
The leaves inclining to a darker blue ;
The leaves fhoot thick about the flower, and grow
Into a bush, and shade the turf below:
The plant in holy garlands often twines
The altars' pofts, and beautifies the shrines ;
Its tafte is fharp, in vales new-fhorn it grows,
Where Mella's ftream in watry mazes flows.
Take plenty of its roots, and boil them well
In wine, and heap them up before the cell.
But if the whole stock fail, and none furvive;
To raise new people, and recruit the hive,
I'll here the great experiment declare,
That spread th' Arcadian shepherd's name fo far.
How bees from blood of flaughter'd bulls have fled,
And swarms amidst the red corruption bred.
For where th' Egyptians yearly fee their bounds Refresh'd with floods, and fail about their grounds, Where Perfia borders, and the rolling Nile Drives fwiftly down the swarthy Indians foil, Till into seven it multiplies its stream, And fattens Egypt with a fruitful slime: In this last practice all their hope remains, And long experience juftifies their pains.
First then a close contracted space of ground, With trainten'd walls and low-built roof they found; A narrow shelving light is next affign'd
To all the quarters, one to every wind;
Through these the glancing rays obliquely pierce :
Hither they lead a bull that's young and fierce,
When two-years growth of horn he proudly shows,
And shakes the comely terrors of his brows:
His nofe and mouth, the avenues of breath,
They muzzle up, and beat his limbs to death.
With violence to life and ftifling pain
He flings and fpurns, and tries to fnort in vain,
Loud heavy mows fall thick on every fide,
'Till his bruis'd bowels burft within the hide.
When dead, they leave him rotting on the ground,
With branches, thyme, and caffia, ftrow'd around.
All this is done when firft the western breeze
Becalms the year, and smooths the troubled seas ;
Before the chattering fwallow builds her neft,
Or fields in spring's embroidery are drest.
Mean while the tainted juice ferments within,
And quickens as it works: and now are seen
A wondrous fwarm, that o'er the carcafe crawls,
Of shapeless, rude, unfinish'd animals,
No legs at firft the infect's weight sustain,
At length it moves its new-made limbs with pain;
Now strikes the air with quivering wings, and tries
To lift its body up, and learns to rife;
Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears
Full grown, and all the bee at length appears;
From every fide the fruitful carcafe pours
Its fwarming brood, as thick as fummer showers,
Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows;
When twanging ftrings firft fhoot them on the foes.
Thus have I fung the nature of the bee;
While Cæfar, towering to divinity,
The frighted Indians with his thunder aw'd,
And claim'd their homage, and commenc'd a god;
I flourish'd all the while in arts of peace,
Retir'd and shelter'd in inglorious ease:
I who before the fongs of fhepherds made,
When gay and young my rural lays I play'd,,
And fet my Tityrus beneath his fhade.
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