356 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
The first is a description of the monarch of the hive— 
overdrawn of course to our ideas, and indeed fictitious, but 
admirable according to the information of the poet’s own day :— 
“But mark, of regal port and awful mien, 
Where moves with measured pave the insect queen! 
Twelve chosen guards, with slow and solemn yguit, 
Bend at her nod, and round her person wait. 
Not eastern despots, of their splendour vain, 
Can boast, in all their pomp, a brighter truin 
Of fear-bound satraps; not in bonds of love 
Can loyal Britons more obedient move.” 
Next we have the drones :— 
“ But now, when April smiles through many a tear, 
And the bright Bull receives the rolling year, 
Another tribe, to different fates assigned, 
In ampler cells their giant limbs confined, 
Burst through the yielding wax, and wheel around 
On heavier wing, and hum wu deeper sound. 
No sharpened sting they boast; yet, buzzing loud, 
Before the hive, in threatening circles, crowd 
The unwieldy drones. Their short proboscis sips 
No luscious nectar from the wild thyme’s lips ; 
From the lime’s leaf no amber drops they steal, 
Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal : 
On others’ toils, in pampered leisure, thrive 
The lazy fathers of the industrious hive.” 
But far better than either of these, and rising to an alto- 
gener higher level of poetry, is the following beautiful 
apostrophe to the working bees :— 
“Ye light-winged labourers! hail the auspicious sign, 
When the twin stars in rival splendour shine ! 
Cheered by their beams, your quickening numbers swell, 
And pant your nations in the crowded cell. 
Blithe Maia calls, and bids her jocund train 
Breathe the warm gale, or softly falling rain ; 
