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; Bare them right doughtily,- Upon Saint Crispin's day 212 TELLING THE BEES 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 Of light through the leaves, 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 214 DAYBREAK Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away." 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, And said, "O mists, make room for me." 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, "Bow down, and hail the coming morn.' 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; |