THE BEES AND THE FLIES

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
Means to restore his hives again.
More briefly, how a slaughtered bull

Breeds honey by the bellyful.

The egregious rustic put to death
A bull by stopping of its breath,
Disposed the carcass in a shed

With fragrant herbs and branches spread,
And, having thus performed the charm,
Sat down to wait the promised swarm.

Nor waited long. The God of Day
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,
Past any doubt, the bull conceives!

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;
But when to crown the work he goes,
Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!
Where are the honest toilers? Where
The gravid mistress of their care?
A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
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,
Through putrid offal, while above
The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
Consume corruption twice corrupt.

"OUR FATHERS ALSO"

Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings, Are changing 'neath our hand;

Our fathers also see these things

But they do not understand.

By

they are by with mirth and tears,

Wit or the works of Desire

Cushioned about on the kindly years

Between the wall and the fire.

The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked
Standeth no more to glean;

For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
When they went out between.

All lore our Lady Venus bares,
Signalled it was or told

By the dear lips long given to theirs
And longer to the mould.

.

All Profit, all Device, all Truth

Written it was or said.

By the mighty men of their mighty youth, Which is mighty being dead.

The film that floats before their eyes

The Temple's Veil they call;

And the dust that on the Shewbread lies

Is holy over all.

Warn them of seas that slip our yoke

Of slow-conspiring stars —

The ancient Front of Things unbroke
But heavy with new wars?

By

they are by with mirth and tears,

Wit or the waste of Desire

Cushioned about on the kindly years

Between the wall and the fire

A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG

(A. D. 406)

My father's father saw it not,

And I, belike, shall never come, To look on that so-holy spot

The very Rome

Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might
The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height
The Race began!

Soon to send forth again a brood, Unshakeable, we pray, that clings, To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood In arduous things.

Strong heart with triple armour bound, Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs, Age after Age, the Empire round

In us thy Sons