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