This while our noble king, And many a deep wound lent Gloucester, that duke so good, Warwick in blood did wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up ; Suffolk his axe did ply, Bare them right doughtily,- Upon Saint Crispin's day With such acts fill a pen, Michael Drayton. TELLING THE BEES 1 HERE is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the barr's brown length, and the cattle-yard, There are the beehives ranged in the sun; Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, Heavy and slow; And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, And the same brook sings of a year ago. There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze; And the June sun warm Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, Setting, as then, over Fernside Farm. 1 Note 17. I mind me how with a lover's care From my Sunday coat I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat. Since we parted, a month had passed, To love, a year; Down through the beeches I looked at last On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. I can see it all now, the slantwise rain The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, Just the same as a month before, The house and the trees, The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, — Before them, under the garden wall, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, Trembling, I listened: the summer sun For I knew she was telling the bees of one Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill, The old man sat; and the chore-girl still And the song she was singing ever since "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence! John Greenleaf Whittier. DAYBREAK A WIND came up out of the sea, It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, And hurried landward far away, It said unto the forest, "Shout! It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer, It whispered to the fields of corn, It shouted through the belfry-tower, "Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour." It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. THE HUMBLE-BEE BURLY, dozing humble-bee, Insect lover of the sun, Joy of thy dominion! Sailor of the atmosphere; Swimmer through the waves of air; Voyager of light and noon; |