2 74 The Poets and Nature. 



" So by the kettle's loud alarm 

 The bees are gathered to a swarm." 



" New legions soon 



Pour to the spot like bees of Kamzaroon 

 To the shrill timbrel's summons." 



' So swarming bees that on a summer's day, 

 In airy rings and wild meanders play, 

 Charmed with the brazen sound, their wand'rings end. 



1 So wandering bees would perish in the air, 

 Did not a sound proportioned to their ear 

 Appease their rage, invite them to the hive, 

 Unite their force, and teach them how to thrive." 



Of the homeward flight of the bee, the load it carries, 

 its satisfied hum, and the directness of its course a " bee- 

 line " has passed into a proverb for straightness there are 

 many pretty recognitions. Not that Rogers, casting about 

 for illustrations of the Pleasures of Memory, is specially 

 felicitous : 



1 ' Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell ? 

 Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell? 

 With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue 

 Of varied scents, that charmed her as she flew ? 

 Hail, Memory, hail ! thy universal reign 

 Guards the least link of being's glorious chain." 



for bees seldom return by the same way that they go. 



The mother-bee is never in any sense a sovereign. She 

 is simply an egg-producing machine, which has been con- 

 structed by the "horny-handed" toilers of the hive, and 

 (as one may always expect the proletariat to do when they 

 are the masters), they take good care to let their " queen " 

 understand that she is their property and the work of their 

 hands. Every possible care is taken of her as a valuable 

 machine, that she shall not be injured or go astray. She 



