Alas! in Beedom, the archbishop himself, inasmuch as he was no wax-chandler, would have been accounted one of these same lazy, yawning drones, and delivered over to the secular arm. Bees do not teach men, nor ought they. We have some higher things among us, even than wax and honey; and though we have our flaws, too, in the art of government, and do not yet know exactly what to do with them, we hope we shall find out. Will the bees ever do that? Do they also hope it? Do they sit pondering, when the massacre is over, and think it but a bungling way of bringing their accounts right? Man, in his self-love, laughs at such a fancy. He is of opinion that no creature can think, or make progression, but himself. What right he has, from his little experience, to come to such conclusions, we know not; but he must allow, that we know as little of the conclusions of the bees. All we feel certain of is, that with bees, as with men, the good of existence outweighs the evil; that evil itself is but a rough working towards good; and that if good can ultimately be better without it, there is a thing called hope, which says it may be possible. We take our planet to be very young, and our love of progression to be one of the proofs of it; and when we think of the good, and beauty, and love, and pleasure, and generosity, and nobleness of mind and imagination, in which this green and glorious world is abundant, we cannot but conclude that the love of progression is to make it still more glorious, and add it to the number of those older stars, which are probably resting from their labours, and have become heavens.
CHAPTER XII.
MISCELLANEOUS FEELINGS RESPECTING SICILY, ITS MUSIC, ITS RELIGION, AND ITS MODERN POETRY.
DANTE’S EVENING.—AVE MARIA OF BYRON.—THE SICILIAN VESPERS.—NOTHING “INFERNAL” IN NATURE.—SICILIAN MARINER’S HYMN.—INVOCATION FROM COLERIDGE.—PAGAN AND ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP.—LATIN AND ITALIAN COUPLET.—WINTER’S “RATTO DI PROSERPINA.”—A HINT ON ITALIAN AIRS.—BELLINI.—MELI, THE MODERN THEOCRITUS.
ime flies, and friends must part. In closing our Blue Jar, a rosy light seems to come over it, at once beautiful and melancholy; for terminations are farewells, and farewells remind us of evenings, and of the divine lines of the poet:—
Era già l’ ora, che volge ’l desio
A’ naviganti, e intenerisce ’l cuore
Lo dì ch’ an detto a’ dolci amici A Dio:
E che lo nuovo peregrin d’ amore
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano,
Che paia ’l giorno pianger che si muore.
’Twas now the hour, when love of home melts through
Men’s hearts at sea, and longing thoughts portray
The moment when they bade sweet friends adieu;
And the new pilgrim now, on his lone way,
Thrills as he hears the distant vesper bell,
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.