"High mountains closed the vale,
Bare, rocky mountains, to all living things
Inhospitable; on whose sides no herb
Rooted, no insect fed, no bird awoke
Their echoes, save the eagle, strong of wing;
A lonely plunderer, that afar
Sought in the vales his prey.
"Thither towards those mountains Thalaba
Advanced, for well he ween'd that there had Fate
Destined the adventure's end.
Up a wide vale, winding amid their depths,
A stony vale between receding heights
Of stone, he wound his way.
A cheerless place! _The solitary Bee,_
_Whose buzzing was the only sound of life,_
_Flew there on restless wing,_
_Seeking in vain one blossom, where to fix._"
_Thalaba_, book vi. 12, 13.
This incident of the wandering bee, highly poetical, seems at first sight
very improbable, and passes for one of the many strange creations of this
wild poem. But yet it is quite true to nature, and was probably suggested
to Southey, an omnivorous reader, by some out-of-the-way book of travels.
In Hurton's _Voyage to Lapland_, vol. ii. p. 251., published a few years
since, he says that as he stood on the verge of the North Cape,--
"The only living creature that came near me was a _bee_, which hummed
merrily by. What did the busy insect seek there? Not a blade of grass
grew, and the only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster of
withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, and it I
gathered at considerable risk as a memorial of my visit."
So in Fremont's _Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, 1842,
p. 69., he speaks of standing on the crest of the snow peak, 13,570 feet
above the Gulf of Mexico, and adds:
"During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except
the small sparrow-like bird already mentioned. A stillness the most
profound, and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the
mind as the great features of the place. Here on the summit, where the
stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the solitude
complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life: but
while we were sitting on the rock, a _solitary bee_ (_Bromus_, the
humble bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on
the knee of one of the men.
"It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky
Mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased
ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross
the mountain barrier, a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of
civilisation. I believe that a moment's thought would have made us let
him continue his way unharmed, but we carried out the law of this
country, where all animated nature seems at war; and seizing him
immediately, put him in at least a fit place, in the leaves of a large
book, among the flowers we had collected on our way."