And the ground mole sinks his well; Where the whitest lilies blow, For, eschewing books and tasks, Oh, for boyhood's time of June, Apples of Hesperides! Oh, for festal dainties spread, Cheerily, then, my little man, Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: All too soon these feet must hide In the prison cells of pride, 30 10 Happy if their track be found Quick and treacherous sands of sin. TELLING THE BEES 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 poplars tall; And the barn's brown length, and the cattle yard, And the white horns tossing above the wall. There are the beehives ranged in the sun; And down by the brink Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 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. I mind me how, with a lover's care, I brushed off the burs, and smoothed my hair, 39 25 20 15 5 5 00 15 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, The bloom of her roses under the eaves. The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, - Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went, drearily singing, the chore girl small, Trembling, I listened; the summer sun Had the chill of snow; For I knew she was telling the bees of one Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps 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 ! |