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| A FARMER of the Augustan Age | |
| Perused in Virgil’s golden page, | |
| The story of the secret won | |
| From Proteus by Cyrene’s son— | |
| How the dank sea-god showed the swain | 5 |
| Means to restore his hives again. | |
| More briefly, how a slaughtered bull | |
| Breeds honey by the bellyful. | |
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| The egregious rustic put to death | |
| A bull by stopping of its breath, | 10 |
| Disposed the carcass in a shed | |
| With fragrant herbs and branches spread, | |
| And, having well performed the charm, | |
| Sat down to wait the promised swarm. | |
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| Nor waited long. The God of Day | 15 |
| Impartial, quickening with his ray | |
| Evil and good alike, beheld | |
| The carcass—and the carcass swelled. | |
| Big with new birth the belly heaves | |
| Beneath its screen of scented leaves. | 20 |
| Past any doubt, the bull conceives! | |
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| The farmer bids men bring more hives | |
| To house the profit that arrives; | |
| Prepares on pan, and key and kettle, | |
| Sweet music that shall make ’em settle; | 25 |
| But when to crown the work he goes, | |
| Gods! What a stink salutes his nose! | |
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| Where are the honest toilers? Where | |
| The gravid mistress of their care? | |
| A busy scene, indeed, he sees, | 30 |
| But not a sign or sound of bees. | |
| Worms of the riper grave unhid | |
| By any kindly coffin-lid, | |
| Obscene and shameless to the light, | |
| Seethe in insatiate appetite, | 35 |
| Through putrid offal, while above | |
| The hissing blow-fly seeks his love, | |
| Whose offspring, supping where they supt, | |
| Consume corruption twice corrupt. | |
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