Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/107

IV. 1–25.]

Next will I advance to heaven-born honey, the gift of air, (let this likewise, Maecenas, share thy regard,) and tell thee of the wondrous show of a tiny state, of high-hearted princes and a whole nation's ordered works and ways, tribes and battles. Slight is the field of labour; but not slight the glory, if but thwarting deities allow, and Apollo listen to prayer.

First of all a home must be sought for bees, and a post where neither winds may have entry—for winds hinder them carrying their forage home—nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers, or the straying heifer brush the dew from the meadow and trample the springing grass. Likewise let the bright scale-backed lizard be far from their rich folds, and the birds that come with the bee-eater, and the swallow, her breast marked with those blood-stained hands: for they spread universal havoc, and carry off the bees on the wing, dainty morsels for their fierce nestlings. But let clear springs be nigh, and ponds green with moss, and a thread of rill fleeting through the grass; and let a palm or tall wild-olive over-shadow the entrance, that when the new kings shall lead forth their earliest swarms in the sweet springtime, and the young brood disport unprisoned from the comb, the bordering bank may woo them to cool retreat, and the tree meet and stay them in her leafy shelter. Amid the water, whether it stagnate or run, cast large stones and