CHAPTER VII. 

 DEBORAH: "THE HONEY-BEE." 



SUPREME among the poets' insects is the honey-bee. 

 Indeed, it occupies quite as large a space in verse as 

 either the dog or the nightingale, the dolphin or the rose, 

 among the bards' beasts, birds, " fishes," and flowers. 



For Deborah the name "being translated means the 

 honey-bee " abounds, even on the surface of its small 

 brown individuality with morals and metaphors and similes. 

 Chief of these are its diligence, as " the busy bee ; " its 

 "sweet alchemy," as the honey-gatherer; its " skilful 

 architecture," as the artist " that builds its golden house 

 downward ; " its sense of discipline, as a citizen under a 

 constitutional government : 



' ' Creatures that by a rule of nature teach 

 The art of order to a peopled kingdom." 



Besides these, the insect has many engaging traits and 

 habits, each of which suffices for endless illustration of 

 human analogies; and so, through all the poets' "im- 

 memorial " lines, is heard " the murmuring of innumerable 

 bees." 



Yet of all bee-facts and bee-fictions nothing attracts the 

 poetic fancy more than the honey-gatherer's association 

 with flowers. 



In April, when the sallow is abloom with golden catkins, 



faintly fragrant, like Australian wattles, the first of the honey- 



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