Georgics

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? When now the golden sun has put

Winter to headlong flight beneath the world,

And oped the doors of heaven with summer ray,

Forthwith they roam the glades and forests o'er,

Rifle the painted flowers, or sip the streams,

Light-hovering on the surface. Hence it is

With some sweet rapture, that we know not of,

Their little ones they foster, hence with skill

Work out new wax or clinging honey mould.

So when the cage-escaped hosts you see

Float heavenward through the hot clear air, until

You marvel at yon dusky cloud that spreads

And lengthens on the wind, then mark them well;

For then 'tis ever the fresh springs they seek

And bowery shelter: hither must you bring

The savoury sweets I bid, and sprinkle them,

Bruised balsam and the wax-flower's lowly weed,

And wake and shake the tinkling cymbals heard

By the great Mother: on the anointed spots

Themselves will settle, and in wonted wise

Seek of themselves the cradle's inmost depth.

But if to battle they have hied them forth—

For oft 'twixt king and king with uproar dire

Fierce feud arises, and at once from far

You may discern what passion sways the mob,

And how their hearts are throbbing for the strife;

Hark! the hoarse brazen note that warriors know

Chides on the loiterers, and the ear may catch

A sound that mocks the war-trump's broken blasts;

Then in hot haste they muster, then flash wings,

Sharpen their pointed beaks and knit their thews,

And round the king, even to his royal tent,

Throng rallying, and with shouts defy the foe.

So, when a dry Spring and clear space is given,

Forth from the gates they burst, they clash on high;

A din arises; they are heaped and rolled

Into one mighty mass, and headlong fall,

Not denselier hail through heaven, nor pelting so

Rains from the shaken oak its acorn-shower.

Conspicuous by their wings the chiefs themselves

Press through the heart of battle, and display