Curious Customs and Beliefs 347 



modifying it somewhat : — As Love lay sleeping in the 

 Golden Age upon a bright flower-field a bee lying in a 

 rose leaf stung him. This modern Amor did not run 

 crying to Venus but became wiser for what had happened. 

 He lurked in roses and violets and when a maiden came to 

 pick he flew out as a bee — and stung her ! 



" Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which 

 hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart and a sting in 

 her tail," says Quarles, using an ancient form of thought 

 with which we are already familiar and which seems as 

 much a favorite with the modern as with the ancient 

 writers. 



Dr. Watts thus uses an equally well-known figure in one 

 of his lyrics, — 



" The rills of pleasure never run sincere ; 

 (Earth has no unpolluted spring,) 

 From the curs'd soil some dang'rous taint they bear ; 

 So roses grow on thorns, and honey wears a sting." 



It was Dr. Watts too who composed the most popular of 

 all bee-songs, one with which every child is familiar. 



" How doth the little busy bee 

 Improve each shining hour, 

 And gather honey all the day 

 From every opening flower ! " 



Naturally many of our modern poets agree with Horace 

 and Martial in extolling solitude, accompanied by bees, as 

 where Samuel Rogers says, — 



" Mine be a cot beside the hill ; 



A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear; 

 A willowy brook that turns a mill. 

 With many a fall, shall linger near." 



Keats in his sonnet ''O Solitude ! If I must with thee 

 dwell," sings : — 



