42 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan, 



Youth in its vigor numbcrpd With the dead, 

 And laid on funeral piles that flame the skies 

 Too soon, before their weeping parents' eyes. 



THE BOUNDARIES OF HADES DESCRIBED. 



Around them all infernal rivers wind. 

 Dark with deep mud, with reeds unlovely lined. 

 Slow creeps the reeking swamp, nor brisk, nor still, 

 Waves murmur not of lr>ve, but death and ill: 

 Yea, nine-fold Styx surrounds, and flows between 

 Their clime and ours where sunlight beams'serene. 



MUSIC CONQUERS THE INFERNAL POWERS. 



Infernal dynasties, the powers below, 



D >z<-d by the music, let their natures go; 



The Furies, even, in the lowest hell. 



Twined with blue snakes for hair, confessed the spell; 



And Cerberus, the dog of hell's police, 



Ope'd his three mouths lo bark, but held his peace. 



Torment and grief subsided at the song. 



While Orpheus as a conqueror passed along; 



And Ixion's torture-wheel, unknown to pause. 



Stopped, as he named, and pled, and won his cause. 



RETURNING WITH EURYDICE. 



Turning his glad foot homeward now at last, 

 His toils were o'er, and dangers all were past; 

 Eurydice, the darling of his care. 

 Surrendered, just approached the upper air. 

 Behind him keeping; for the infernal qupen 

 Bade for the journey that she be not seen. 



A MOMENT'S FORGETFULNESS. 



Ah! sudden thoughtlessnfss did seize justthtre 

 The incautious lover of the rescued fair- 

 Most pardonable, truly, did they Know 

 How to forgive in the drear land below. 

 His own Eurydice he now had brought 

 Beneath the light, her eyes the beam had caught. 

 When, conquered of the love that swept his mind. 

 Forgetting then, nhis! he looked behind. 

 Ah, wretched Orpheus! in that very spot 

 All of his labor instant came to naught ; 

 And there the terms of death's stern tyrant broke. 

 And thrice did Hades crash with tiiunder stroke. 



eurvdice's farewell. 

 O Orpheus! why, in piteous tones she cried. 

 Hast lost thyself, and thine unhappy bride? 

 What is this power? I feel its furious breath; 

 Harsh fates recall me to a second death; 

 Sleep shuts my swimming eyes with iron spell; 

 It is the sleep of death ; and now farewell. 

 In thickest night enfolded round and round 

 I'm borne away, a helpless captive bound; 

 Alas! no more your happy bride I'll be. 

 But to the last I stretch my hands to thee. 



DESPAIR. 



She said; and from his eyes like smoke in air 



She fled dispi'rsed, no vision mere was there. 



Grasping at shadows wildly and in vain. 



Frantic he stood alone upon the plain, 



Thinking solnany things he wished to say. 



But she who might have heard had passed away. 



Keturning quickly to the infernal shore. 



The ferryman refused to take him o'er. 



What should he do, his wife twice snatched away? 



Where bear himself? or what device essay? 



Or with what weeping should he move the grave? . 



Or with what song persuade the gods to save? 



All vain! cold in the Stygian boat she lay. 



And now for ever more she floats away. 



ORPHEUS IN THE WILDERNESS. 



For seven long months in order, they declare, 



He wept beneath a rock that rose in air. 

 Where lonely Strymon's river I'olls its waves. 

 And sang these things within its chilly caves: 

 He calmed the tigers' bloody thirst with song. 

 And moved amain the mighty oaks and strong. 

 Thus her lost young the mournful nightingale 

 Beneath the poplar's shadow doth bewail. 

 A plowman found them, as unfledged they lay, 

 And wi(h hard heart he snatched them all away; 

 And seated on a bough she weeps her song. 

 Repeats it o'er and o'er the whole night long; 

 With sad laments she fills the land afar. 

 And sadder yet the songs of Orpheus are. 



ORPHEUS AMONG THE HUSBAND-HUNTERS. 



No sweetheart, in the guise of pitying friend. 

 Could Orpheus' mind toward further hymen bend. 

 Far off alone his heart was fain to go 

 O'er hyperborean ice and Russian snow. 

 His lost Eurydice bewailing still 

 And Pluto's gifts, that proved so vain and ill. 

 At length the Thracian women on him turned. 

 Whose brazen favors he had coolly spurned, 

 And in the;,frenzy of their midnight feasts. 

 Held to ihe god of wine, like savage beasts. 

 They strewed the youth so late their hope'and pride. 

 Torn limb from limb through meadows far and wide : 

 Then also when the river Hebrus rolled 

 His head torn from his marble neck so cold, 

 Down the mid whirlpool bearing it away. 

 The wonted voice refus^^d to silent stay. 

 " Earydicel ' the cold tongue called once mure. 

 His soul departing for the gilent shore, 

 "O poor Eurydice!" and echoes came 

 From all the banks bearing the precious name. 

 I can overlook the heathenism of all this in con- 



j sideration of its tender and majestic power. Too 



I sentimental? Well, perhaps it is. At any rate, Or- 

 pheus completely beats the undutiful wife who 

 would say "scissors." 



And Aristneus, at the conclusion of such a counter- 

 blast, naturally trembled, and felt pretty blue; but 



j his mother quickly cheered him up. The cause of 

 the disease among his bees was now known (and it 



i wasn't pollen either), and she knew that the nymphs 

 would quickly forgive, if they were properly wor- 

 shiped with sacriUccs. Very briskly she reeled off 

 the various steps to be taken to make all straight. 

 Four bulls and four heifers must be sacrificed to the 

 nymphs, and the bodies left in a grove. Next, after 

 waiting nine mornings, he was to; olTer poppies to 

 Orpheus, and a young heifer to Eurydice, and a 

 black sheep (emblem of himself, I reckon), and then 

 he must go again to the grove where the first sacri- 

 Uccs lay. He di i so, and behold bees were swarming 

 out of every carcass. On a prominent tree they 

 clustered, making it look as if it were hung with 

 great clusters of grapes — evidently not one swarm 

 only, as a word in my last article would indicate, 

 but eight swarms. We may safely assume that he 

 hived 'em "quick sticks," and " had no trouble any 

 more, any more." 



Then with compliments to Augustus the emperor, 

 and a little chattering about himself, Virgil brings 

 his remarkable poem to a close. E. E. Hasty. 



Richards, Lucas Co., O., Jan. 7, 1881. 



Frieud Hasty, if the man who doesn't love 

 I music is '^ lit for treason, strategy, and 

 ; crim<s," it must be equally so, we think, of 

 1 him who can not follow with pleasure this 

 ' insight you give us into Virgil's mind. 



