HKB
GEORGIC IV
Of air-born honey, gift of heaven, I now Take up the tale. Upon this theme no less Look thou, Maecenas, with indulgent eye. A marvellous display of puny powers, High-hearted chiefs, a nation's history, Its traits, its bent, its battles and its clans, All, each, shall pass before you, while I sing. Slight though the poet's theme, not slight the praise, So frown not heaven, and Phoebus hear his call. First find your bees a settled sure abode, Where neither winds can enter (winds blow back The foragers with food returning home) Nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers, Nor heifer wandering wide upon the plain Dash off the dew, and bruise the springing blades. Let the gay lizard too keep far aloof His scale-clad body from their honied stalls, And the bee-eater, and what birds beside, And Procne smirched with blood upon the breast From her own murderous hands. For these roam wide Wasting all substance, or the bees themselves Strike flying, and in their beaks bear home, to glut Those savage nestlings with the dainty prey. But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near, And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run, Some palm-tree o'er the porch extend its shade, Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring, Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefs Lead forth the young swarms, and, escaped their comb, The colony comes forth to sport and play, The neighbouring bank may lure them from the heat, Or bough befriend with hospitable shade. O'er the mid-waters, whether swift or still, Cast willow-branches and big stones enow, Bridge after bridge, where they may footing find And spread their wide wings to the summer sun, If haply Eurus, swooping as they pause, Have dashed with spray or plunged them in the deep. And let green cassias and far-scented thymes, And savory with its heavy-laden breath Bloom round about, and violet-beds hard by Sip sweetness from the fertilizing springs. For the hive's self, or stitched of hollow bark, Or from tough osier woven, let the doors Be strait of entrance; for stiff winter's cold Congeals the honey, and heat resolves and thaws, To bees alike disastrous; not for naught So haste they to cement the tiny pores That pierce their walls, and fill the crevices With pollen from the flowers, and glean and keep To this same end the glue, that binds more fast Than bird-lime or the pitch from Ida's pines. Oft too in burrowed holes, if fame be true, They make their cosy subterranean home, And deeply lodged in hollow rocks are found, Or in the cavern of an age-hewn tree. Thou not the less smear round their crannied cribs With warm smooth mud-coat, and strew leaves above; But near their home let neither yew-tree grow, Nor reddening crabs be roasted, and mistrust Deep marish-ground and mire with noisome smell, Or where the hollow rocks sonorous ring, And the word spoken buffets and rebounds. What more?