If now their sinking state and low affairs Can move your pity, and provoke your cares, Fresh burning thyme before their cells convey, And cut their dry and husky wax away; For often lizards seize the luscious spoils, Or drones, that riot on another's toils: Oft broods of moths infest the hungry swarms, And oft the furious wasp their hive alarms With louder hums, and with unequal arms; _320 Or else the spider at their entrance sets. Her snares, and spins her bowels into nets. When sickness reigns, for they as well as we Feel all the effects of frail mortality, By certain marks the new disease is seen, Their colour changes, and their looks are thin; Their funeral rites are formed, and every bee With grief attends the sad solemnity; The few diseased survivors hang before Their sickly cells, and droop about the door, _330 Or slowly in their hives their limbs unfold, Shrunk up with hunger, and benumbed with cold; In drawling hums the feeble insects grieve, And doleful buzzes echo through the hive, Like winds that softly murmur through the trees, Like flames pent up, or like retiring seas. Now lay fresh honey near their empty rooms, In troughs of hollow reeds, whilst frying gums Cast round a fragrant mist of spicy fumes. Thus kindly tempt the famished swarm to eat, _340 And gently reconcile them to their meat. Mix juice of galls, and wine, that grow in time Condensed by fire, and thicken to a slime; To these, dried roses, thyme, and ccntaury join, And raisins, ripened on the Psythian vine. Besides, there grows a flower in marshy ground, Its name amellus, easy to be found; A mighty spring works in its root, and cleaves The sprouting stalk, and shows itself in leaves: The flower itself is of a golden hue, _350 The leaves inclining to a darker blue; The leaves shoot thick about the flower, and grow Into a bush, and shade the turf below: The plant in holy garlands often twines The altars' posts, and beautifies the shrines; Its taste is sharp, in vales new-shorn it grows, Where Mella's stream in watery 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 survive; _360 To raise new people, and recruit the hive, I'll here the great experiment declare, That spread the Arcadian shepherd's name so far. How bees from blood of slaughtered bulls have fled, And swarms amidst the red corruption bred. For where the Egyptians yearly see their bounds Refreshed with floods, and sail about their grounds, Where Persia borders, and the rolling Nile Drives swiftly down the swarthy Indian's soil, Till into seven it multiplies its stream, _370 And fattens Egypt with a fruitful slime: In this last practice all their hope remains, And long experience justifies their pains. First, then, a close contracted space of ground,