But, if the labouring kind be wholly lost, And not to be retrieved with care or cost; 'Tis time to touch the precepts of an art, The Arcadian master did of old impart; And how he stocked his empty hives again, Renewed with putrid gore of oxen slain. An ancient legend I prepare to sing, And upward follow Fame's immortal spring:-- For, where with seven-fold horns mysterious Nile Surrounds the skirts of Egypt's fruitful isle, And where in pomp the sun-burnt people ride, On painted barges, o'er the teeming tide, Which, pouring down from Ethiopian lands, Makes green the soil with slime, and black prolific sands-- That length of region, and large tract of ground, In this one art a sure relief have found. First, in a place by nature close, they build A narrow flooring, guttered, walled, and tiled. In this, four windows are contrived, that strike, To the four winds opposed, their beams oblique. A steer of two years old they take, whose head Now first with burnished horns begins to spread: They stop his nostrils, while he strives in vain To breathe free air, and struggles with his pain. Knocked down, he dies: his bowels, bruised within, Betray no wound on his unbroken skin. Extended thus, in this obscene abode They leave the beast; but first sweet flowers are strowed Beneath his body, broken boughs and thyme, And pleasing cassia just renewed in prime. This must be done, ere spring makes equal day, When western winds on curling waters play; Ere painted meads produce their flowery crops, Or swallows twitter on the chimney-tops. The tainted blood, in this close prison pent, Begins to boil, and through the bones ferment. Then (wonderous to behold) new creatures rise, A moving mass at first, and short of thighs; 'Till, shooting out with legs, and imp'd with wings, The grubs proceed to bees with pointed stings; And, more and more affecting air, they try Their tender pinions, and begin to fly: At length, like summer storms from spreading clouds, That burst at once, and pour impetuous floods-- Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows, When from afar they gall embattled foes-- With such a tempest through the skies they steer, And such a form the winged squadrons bear. What god, O Muse! this useful science taught? Or by what man's experience was it brought? Sad Aristæus from fair Tempe fled-- } His bees with famine or diseases dead:-- } On Penëus's banks he stood, and near his holy head; } And, while his falling tears the stream supplied, Thus, mourning, to his mother goddess cried:-- "Mother Cyrene! mother, whose abode Is in the depth of this immortal flood! What boots it, that from Phœbus' loins I spring, The third, by him and thee, from heaven's high king? O! where is all thy boasted pity gone, And promise of the skies to thy deluded son? Why didst thou me, unhappy me, create,