Dares the still hive and sheltered bees assail:
Lest as they homeward droop, o’erdone with toil,
Inclement blasts their loaded flight despoil;
Far from the sheep that wasted earth devour,
The wanton bird that bounds from flower to flower;
Heifers whose roving steps the meadow bruise,
And dash from springing herbs nectareous dews.
There let no lizard, armed with burnished scale,
Merops, or bird of prey, their wall assail,
Nor Progne haunt, whose conscious plumes attest