First ripening autumn bent his fruitful bough.
When piercing colds had burst the brittle stone,
And freezing rivers stiffened as they run,
He then would prune the tenderest of his trees,
Chide the late spring, and lingering western breeze:
His bees first swarmed, and made his vessels foam
With the rich squeezing of the juicy comb.
Here lindens and the sappy pine increased;
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Here, when gay flowers his smiling orchard dressed,
As many blossoms as the spring could show,
So many dangling apples mellowed on the bough.
In rows his elms and knotty pear-trees bloom,
And thorns ennobled now to bear a plum,
And spreading plane-trees, where, supinely laid,
He now enjoys the cool, and quaffs beneath the shade.
But these for want of room I must omit,
And leave for future poets to recite.
Now I'll proceed their natures to declare,
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Which Jove himself did on the bees confer
Because, invited by the timbrel's sound,
Lodged in a cave, the almighty babe they found,
And the young god nursed kindly under-ground.
Of all the winged inhabitants of air,
These only make their young the public care;
In well-disposed societies they live,
And laws and statutes regulate their hive;
Nor stray like others unconfined abroad,
But know set stations, and a fixed abode:
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Each provident of cold in summer flies
Through fields and woods, to seek for new supplies,
And in the common stock unlades his thighs.
Some watch the food, some in the meadows ply,
Taste every bud, and suck each blossom dry;
Whilst others, labouring in their cells at home,
Temper Narcissus' clammy tears with gum,
For the first groundwork of the golden comb;
On this they found their waxen works, and raise
The yellow fabric on its gluey base.
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Some educate the young, or hatch the seed
With vital warmth, and future nations breed;
Whilst others thicken all the slimy dews,
And into purest honey work the juice;
Then fill the hollows of the comb, and swell
With luscious nectar every flowing cell.
By turns they watch, by turns with curious eyes
Survey the heavens, and search the clouded skies,
To find out breeding storms, and tell what tempests rise.
By turns they ease the loaden swarms, or drive
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The drone, a lazy insect, from their hive.
The work is warmly plied through all the cells,
And strong with thyme the new-made honey smells.
So in their