The Care of Bees

Now, when thou hast decreed to seize their stores,
And by prerogative to bread their doors,
With sprinkled water first the city choke,
And then pursue the citizens with smoke.
Two honey-harvests fall in every year:
First, when the pleasing Pleiades appear,
And, springing upward, spurn the briny seas:
Again, when their affrighted choir surveys
The watery Scorpion mend his pace behind,
With a black train of storms, and winter wind,
They plunge into the deep, and safe protection find.
Prone to revenge, the bees, a wrathful race,
When once provoked, assult the aggressor's face,
And through the purple veins a passage find;
There fix their stings, and leave their sould behind.