Long ago Apollo called to Aristaeus, youngest of the shepherds, Saying, “I will make you keeper of my bees.” Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey; golden, too, the music, Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.
Happy Aristaeus loitered in the garden, wandered in the orchard, Careless and contented, indolent and free; Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure, till the fated moment When across his pathway came Eurydice.
Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him; drove him wild with longing, For the perfect sweetness of her flower-like face; Eagerly he followed, while she fled before him, over mead and mountain, On through field and forest, in a breathless race.
But the nymph, in flying, trod upon a serpent; like a dream she vanished; Pluto's chariot bore her down among the dead; Lonely Aristaeus, sadly home returning, found his garden empty, All the hives deserted, all the music fled.
Mournfully bewailing,— “ah, my honey-makers, where have you departed?” — Far and wide he sought them, over sea and shore; Foolish is the tale that says he ever found them, brought them home in triumph,— Joys that once escape us fly for evermore.
Yet I dream that somewhere, clad in downy whiteness, dwell the honey-makers, In aerial gardens that no mortal sees: And at times returning, lo, they flutter round us, gathering mystic harvest,— So I weave the legend of the long-lost bees.
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