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 difeas'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 mist of spicy fumes:
Thus kindly tempt the famish'd swarm 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 flime;
To thefe dry'd rofes, thyme, and centaury join,
And raisins ripen'd on the Pfythian vine.
Befides there grows a flower in marshy ground,
Its name Amellus, eafy 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 bufh, and fhade the turf below:
The plant in holy garlands often twines
The altars' pofts, and beautifies the shrines;
Its tafte is harp, in vales new-fhorn it grows,
Where Mella's stream 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 fpread th' Arcadian fhepherd's name fo far.
How bees from blood of slaughter'd bulls have fled,
And swarms amidst the red corruption bred.
For where th' Egyptians yearly see their bounds Refresh'd with floods, and fail about their grounds, Where Perfia borders, and the rolling Nile Drives swiftly down the swarthy Indians foil, Till into feven 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 ftrainten'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 side,
"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 first the western breeze
Becalms the year, and smooths the troubled seas;
Before the chattering swallow builds her neft,
Or fields in spring's embroidery are dreft.
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 strings first shoot 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 fhelter'd in inglorious eafe :
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.
FOR ST. CECILIA's DAY, AT OXFORD.
ECILIA, whose exalted hymns
With joy and wonder fill the blest,
In choirs of warbling seraphims
Known and distinguish'd from the reft;
Attend, harmonious faint, and fee
Thy vocal fons of harmony;
Attend, harmonious faint, and hear our prayers;
Enliven all our earthly airs,
And, as thou fing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee:
Tune every string and every tongue,
Be thou the Muse and subject of our fong.
Let all Cecilia's praise proclaim,
Employ the echo in her name.
Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise,
At bright Cecilia's name, their lays;
The organ labours in her praise.
Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace,
From every voice the tuneful accents fly,
In foaring trebles now it rifes high,
And now it finks, and dwells upon the base.
Cecilia's name through all the notes we fing,
The work of every skilful tongue,
The found of every trembling string,
The found and triumph of our fong.
For ever confecrate the day,
To mufic and Cecilia;
Mufic, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.
Mufic can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love;
With unfufpected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
When Orpheus ftrikes the trembling lyre,
The ftreams ftand ftill, the ftones admire;
The listening savages advance,
The wolf and lamb around him trip,
The bears in aukward measures leap,
"And tigers mingle in the dance.
The moving woods attended as he play'd,
And Rhodope was left without a fhade.
Mufic religious heats infpires,
It wakes the foul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with fublime defires,
And fits it to bespeak the Deity.
Th' Almighty liftens to a tuneful tongue,
And feems well-pleas'd and courted with a fong.
Soft moving founds and heavenly airs
Give force to every word, and recommend our prayers.
When time itself fhall be no more,
And all things in confusion hurl'd,
Mufic fhall then exert its power,
And found furvive the ruins of the world:
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