Page:OntheConductofMantoInferiorAnimals.pdf/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DESTROYING BEES
43

disgust from the flimsy and consequential harangue.

Destroying Bees. The commonwealth of the bee is admirably governed. Regularity, skill and common toil support It. Every appetite is checked and every private interest suppressed for the public good; and, in the winter months, they exhibit a pattern of frugality and temperance. Mankind, in general, make a bee-hive an object of attention and care; admiring the persevering industry of this insect, and yet he will deliberately suffocate twelve thousand beings (the number of which a hive usually consists) for the sake of seizing a store, the produce of many an anxious toilsome summer's day.

Ah see! where robb'd, and murder'd in that pit
lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatch'd
beneath, the cloud of guilt.concealing night,
and fix'd o'er sulphur; while, not dreaming ill,
the happy people in their waxen cells,
sat tending public cares, and planning schemes
of temperance; for winter.poor, rejoic'd
to mark, full-flowing round, their copious stores.
Sadden, the dark oppressive steam ascends,
and, us'd to milder scents, the tender race,
by thousands, tumble from their honeyed domes,
convolv'd, and agonizing in the dust.
And was it then for this you roam'd the Spring,
intent, from flower to flower? for this you toil'd,
ceaseless, the burning Summer heats away?
for this in Autumn search'd the blooming waste,
nor lost one sunny gleam? for this sad fate?
O Man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long
shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage,
awaiting renovation? When oblig'd,
must you destroy? Of their ambrosial food
can you not borrow, and, in just return,