And in an endless race their children's children reign.
No prostrate vassal of the East can more
With slavish fear his haughty prince adore;
His life unites them all; but, when he dies,
All in loud tumults and distractions rise;
They waste their honey and their combs deface,
And wild confusion reigns in every place.
Him all admire, all the great guardian own,
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And crowd about his courts, and buzz about his throne.
Oft on their backs their weary prince they bear,
Oft in his cause, embattled in the air,
Pursue a glorious death, in wounds and war.
Some, from such instances as these, have taught,
'The bees' extract is heavenly; for they thought
The universe alive; and that a soul,
Diffused throughout the matter of the whole,
To all the vast unbounded frame was given,
And ran through earth, and air, and sea, and all the deep of heaven;
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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 dissolved, the spirit mounted high,
Dwelt in a star, and settled in the sky.'
Whene'er their balmy sweets you mean to seize,
And take the liquid labours of the bees,
Spurt draughts of water from your mouth, and drive
A loathsome cloud of smoke amidst their hive,
Twice in the year their flowery toils begin,