Actions and Reactions

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 sowed 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.