I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;

      And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

      And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

      I hear it in the deep heart's core.

These children of the sun which summer brings

As pastoral minstrels in her merry train

Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings

And glad the cotters' quiet toils again.

The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole

In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies,

And never absent couzen, black as coal,

That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs,

With white and red bedight for holiday,

Right earlily a-morn do pipe and play

And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes.

And aye so fond they of their singing seem

That in their holes abed at close of day

They still keep piping in their honey dreams,

And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe

Round the sweet smelling closen and rich woods

Where tawny white and red flush clover buds

Shine bonnily and bean fields blossom ripe,

Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food

To these sweet poets of the summer fields;

Me much delighting as I stroll along

The narrow path that hay laid meadow yields,

Catching the windings of their wandering song.

The black and yellow bumble first on wing

To buzz among the sallow's early flowers,

Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring

Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers;

And one that may for wiser piper pass,

In livery dress half sables and half red,

Who laps a moss ball in the meadow grass

And hoards her stores when April showers have fled;

And russet commoner who knows the face

Of every blossom that the meadow brings,

Starting the traveller to a quicker pace

By threatening round his head in many rings:

These sweeten summer in their happy glee

By giving for her honey melody.

And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,

And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne

Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne:

No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,

As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,

Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes,

Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enemyes.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

  And still more, later flowers for the bees,

  Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—

The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—

And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!

And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,

Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.

Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,

For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!

With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And Hope without an object cannot live.

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfil.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

Where the Bee sucks, there suck I:

In a Cowslip's bell, I lie;

There I cowch when Owles doe crie.

On the Batts backe I doe flie

After Sommer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I liue now

Vnder the blossom that hangs on the Bow

But (what's more strange) their modest appetites,

Averse from Venus, fly the nuptial rites.

No lust enervates their heroic mind,

Nor wastes their strength on wanton womankind;

But in their mouths reside their genial powers:

They gather children from the leaves and flowers.

Thus make they kings to fill the regal seat,

And thus their little citizens create,

And waxen cities build, the palaces of state.

And oft on rocks their tender wings they tear,

And sink beneath the burdens which they bear:

Such rage of honey in their bosom beats,

And such a zeal they have for flowery sweets

His Feet are shod with Gauze –

His Helmet, is of Gold,

His Breast, a Single Onyx

With Chrysoprase, inlaid.

His Labor is a Chant –

His Idleness – a Tune –

Oh for a Bee's experience

Of Clovers, and of Noon!

Tell me, king, if these flowers, these kids

Are like, or unlike in their kind?

The bee a real flower will not spare;

 The kneeling one will be the girl.

Did the Harebell loose her girdle

To the lover Bee

Would the Bee the Harebell hallow

Much as formerly?

Did the "Paradise" – persuaded –

Yield her moat of pearl –

Would the Eden be an Eden,

Or the Earl – an Earl?

Like Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush

I hear the level Bee –

A Jar across the Flowers goes

Their Velvet Masonry

Withstands until the sweet Assault

Their chivalry consumes –

While He, victorious tilts away

To vanquish other Blooms.

Fair Amaryllis, wilt thou never peep

From forth the cave, & call me, & be mine?

Lo, apples ten I bear thee from the steep,

These didst thou long for, & all these are thine.

Ah, would I were a honey-bee to sweep

Through ivy, & the bracken, & woodbine;

To watch thee waken, Love, & watch thee sleep,

Within thy grot below the shadowy pine.

Now know I Love, a cruel god is he,

The wild beast bare him in the wild wood drear;

& truly to the bone he burneth me.

But, black-browed Amaryllis, ne'er a tear,

Nor sigh, nor blush, nor aught have I from thee;

Nay, nor a kiss, a little gift and dear.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

    And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

    Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips

If, Colatine, thine honor lay in me,

From me by strong assault it is bereft;

My hony lost, and I, a Drone-like bee,

Have no Perfection of my sommer left,

But rob'd & ransackt by injurious theft.

In thy weak hive a wandring waspe hath crept

& sucked the hony which thy chaste Bee kept

The Pedigree of Honey

Does not concern the Bee –

A Clover, any time, to him,

Is Aristocracy –

Fame is a bee.

  It has a song –

It has a sting –

  Ah, too, it has a wing.

This Bee alone of all his race

Did the unhappy day survive

When Sulp'hrous flames in every place

With death & horror fill'd the Hive.

And haveing all those dangers past

He thought he now need fear no more

But hid in mines he at last:

Might live securely as before.

But Sylvia soon disturb'd his rest

For whilst she searcht each little cell

She chanct on that among the rest

Where the poor bee made choice to dwell.

He saw his friends all slain before

Himself of shelter now depriv'd,

He saw the foe the food devour

Which he did for his age provide.

And now the little injur'd thing

Dos for a quick revenge prepare:

Rage gave new sharpnesse to his sting

With which he hasts to wound the faire.

But when to those sweet lips he fled

Which his own honey did out doe

And which excell'd in blushing red

The rose whence he that honey drew,

That lovely place his flight did stay

And all his anger Ended there

But soon her eyes forct him away

Whose neighb'ring raies he could not beare.

With hasty wings to her fair neck

Quite dazl'd & amaz'd he flies

And there some gentle shade dos seek

To shelter him from her bright eyes.

Its beauties when he saw, sayes he,

This place dos gayest feilds excell:

Never before did happy Bee

Midst such delicious sweetnesse dwell.

Now I am reconcil'd to fate,

Forgive all wrongs, forget all feare,

For no bold hand dares violate

This sacred place so heavenly faire.

Sylvia whose neck was never prest

With any touches but her own

With anger strikes the little guest

Which her so oft did importune.

The Bee who saw his death was nigh

Unlesse he from the place wou'd goe

That like an Hero he might die

He at that instance wounds his foe.

The Bee deserv'd no better fate

'Cause he made Sylvia pains Endure:

His crime he thus did expiate

And his own honey wrought the cure.

Learn pity Sylvia from this Bee

And cure the painfull wounds we feel,

Which as they all were given by thee

Thou at an Easier rate canst heale.

One smile in that faire face those wounds will cure

Which thy bright eyes have made us long Endure.

Of all the race of animals, alone

The bees have common cities of their own,

And common sons; beneath one law they live,

And with one common stock their traffic drive.

Each has a certain home, a several stall;

All is the state's, the state provides for all.

Mindful of coming cold, they share the pain,

And hoard, for winter's use, the summer's gain.

Some o'er the public magazines preside,

And some are sent new forage to provide;

These drudge in fields abroad, and those at home

Lay deep foundations for the laboured comb,

With dew, narcissus-leaves, & clammy gum.

Some nurse the future nation of the hive;

Sweet honey some condense; some purge the grout;

The rest, in cells apart, the liquid nectar shut:

All, with united force, combine to drive

The lazy drones from the laborious hive:

With envy stung, they view each other's deeds;

With diligence the fragrant work proceeds.

As, when the Cyclops, at the almighty nod,

New thunder hasten for their angry god,

Subdued in fire the stubborn metal lies;

One brawny smith the puffing bellows plies,

And draws and blows reciprocating air:

Others to quench the hissing mass prepare;

With lifted arms they order every blow,

And chime their sounding hammers in a row;

With laboured anvils Ætna groans below.

Strongly they strike; huge flakes of flames expire;

With tongs they turn the steel, & vex it in the fire.

If little things with great we may compare,

Such are the bees, and such their busy care;

Studious of honey, each in his degree,

The youthful swain, the grave experienced bee—

That in the field; this, in affairs of state

Employed at home, abides within the gate,

To fortify the combs, to build the wall,

To prop the ruins, lest the fabric fall:

But, late at night, with weary pinions come

The labouring youth, and heavy laden, home.

Plains, meads, & orchards, all the day he plies;

The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs:

He spoils the saffron flowers; he sips the blues

Of violets, wilding blooms, & willow dews.

Their toil is common, common is their sleep;

They shake their wings when morn begins to peep,

Rush through the city-gates without delay,

Nor ends their work, but with declining day.

Then, having spent the last remains of light,

They give their bodies due repose at night,

When hollow murmurs of their evening bells

Dismiss the sleepy swains, & toll them to their cells

A Spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,

That lived in Luxury & Ease;

And yet as fam'd for Laws & Arms,

As yielding large & early Swarms;

Was counted the great Nursery

Of Sciences & Industry.

No Bees had better Government,

More Fickleness, or less Content.

They were not Slaves to Tyranny,

Nor ruled by wild Democracy;

But Kings, that could not wrong, because

Their Power was circumscrib'd by Laws.

These Insects lived like Men, and all

Our Actions they perform'd in small:

They did whatever's done in Town,

& what belongs to Sword, or Gown:

Tho' th'Artful Works, by nible Slight;

Of minute Limbs, 'scaped Human Sight

Yet we've no Engines; Labourers,

Ships, Castles, Arms, Artificers,

Craft, Science, Shop, or Instrument,

But they had an Equivalent:

Which, since their Language is unknown,

Must be call'd, as we do our own.

As grant, that among other Things

They wanted Dice, yet they had Kings;

& those had Guards; from whence we may

Justly conclude, they had some Play;

Unless a Regiment be shewn

Of Soldiers, that make use of none

The toiling Tyrians on each other call

To ply their labour: some extend the wall;

Some build the citadel; the brawny throng

Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along.

Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground,

Which, first design'd, with ditches they surround.

Some laws ordain; and some attend the choice

Of holy senates, and elect by voice.

Here some design a mole, while others there

Lay deep foundations for a theatre;

From marble quarries mighty columns hew,

For ornaments of scenes, & future view.

Such is their toil, and such their busy pains,

As exercise the bees in flow'ry plains,

When winter past, and summer scarce begun,

Invites them forth to labour in the sun;

Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense

Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense;

Some at the gate stand ready to receive

The golden burthen, and their friends relieve;

All with united force, combine to drive

The lazy drones from the laborious hive:

With envy stung, they view each other's deeds;

The fragrant work with diligence proceeds

Mean while the winged Haralds by command

Of Sovran power, with awful Ceremony

And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim

A solemn Councel forthwith to be held

At Pandaemonium, the high Capital

Of Satan and his Peers: thir summons call'd

From every Band & squared Regiment

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came

Attended: all access was throng'd, the Gates

And Porches wide, but chief the spacious Hall

(Though like a cover'd field, where Champions bold

Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldans chair

Defi'd the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat or carreer with Lance)

Thick swarm'd, both on the ground & in the air,

Brusht with the hiss of russling wings. As Bees

In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,

Poure forth thir populous youth about the Hive

In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers

Flie to & fro, or on the smoothed Plank,

The suburb of thir Straw-built Cittadel,

New rub'd with Baume, expatiate and confer

Thir State affairs. So thick the aerie crowd

Swarm'd and were straitn'd

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!

How neat she spreads the wax!

And labors hard to store it well

With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,

I would be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be passed,

That I may give for every day

Some good account at last.

His firm stanzas hang like hives in hell

Or what hell was, since now both heaven & hell

Are one, and here, O terra infidel.

The fault lies with an over-human god,

Who by sympathy has made himself a man

And is not to be distinguished, when we cry

Because we suffer, our oldest parent, peer

Of the populace of the heart, the reddest lord,

Who has gone before us in experience.

If only he would not pity us so much,

Weaken our fate, relieve us of woe both great

And small, a constant fellow of destiny,

A too, too human god, self-pity's kin

And uncourageous genesis . . . It seems

As if the health of the world might be enough.

It seems as if the honey of common summer

Might be enough, as if the golden combs

Were part of a sustenance itself enough,

As if hell, so modified, had disappeared,

As if pain, no longer satanic mimicry,

Could be borne, as if we were sure to find our way.

EXETER

…For Gouernment, though high, & low, & lower,

Put into parts, doth keepe in one consent,

Congreeing in a full and natural close,

Like Musicke.

CANTERBURY

             Therefore doth heauen diuide

The state of man in diuers functions,

Setting endeuour in continual motion:

To which is fixed as an ayme or butt,

Obedience: for so worke the Hony Bees,

Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach

The Act of Order to a peopled Kingdome.

They haue a King, and Officers of sorts,

Where some like Magistrates correct at home:

Others, like Merchants venter Trade abroad:

Others, like Souldiers armed in their stings,

Make boote vpon the Summers Veluet buddes:

Which pillage, they with merry march bring home

To the Tent-royal of their Emperor:

Who busied in his Maiesties surueyes

The singing Masons building roofes of Gold,

The ciuil Citizens kneading vp the hony;

The poore Mechanicke Porters, crowding in

Their heauy burthens at his narrow gate:

The sad-ey'd Iustice with his surly humme,

Deliuering ore to Executors pale

The lazie yawning Drone: I this inferre,

That many things hauing full reference

To one consent, may worke contrariously

He travels and expatiates, as the bee

From flower to flower, so he from land to land:

The manners, customs, policy of all

Pay contribution to the store he gleans;

He sucks intelligence in every clime,

And spreads the honey of his deep research

At his return,—a rich repast for me

Thought is a garden wide and old

For airy creatures to explore,

Where grow the great fantastic flowers

With truth for honey at the core.

There like a wild marauding bee

Made desperate by hungry fears,

From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps

I blunder down the dusk of years.

Where hints of racy sap and gum

Out of the old dark forest come;

Where birds their beaks like hammers wield,

And pith is pierced and bark is peeled;

Where the green walnut's outer rind

Gives precious bitterness to the wind;

There lurks the sweet creative power,

As lurks the honey in the flower.

In winter's bud that bursts in spring,

In nut of autumn's ripening,

In acrid bulb beneath the mold,

Sleeps the elixir, strong and old,

That Rosicrucians sought in vain,—

Life that renews itself again!

What bottled perfume is so good

As fragrance of split tulip-wood?

What fabled drink of god or muse

Was rich as purple mulberry juice?

And what school-polished gem of thought

Is like the rune from Nature caught?

He is a poet strong and true

Who loves wild thyme and honey-dew;

And like a brown bee works and sings

With morning freshness on his wings,

And a golden burden on his thighs,—

The pollen-dust of centuries!

Every substantial form, that segregate

From matter is, and with it is united,

Specific power has in itself collected,

Which without act is not perceptible,

Nor shows itself except by its effect,

As life does in a plant by the green leaves.

But still, whence cometh the intelligence

Of the first notions, man is ignorant,

And the affection for the first allurements,

Which are in you as instinct in the bee

To make its honey; and this first desire

Merit of praise or blame containeth not

But what's so agile must of seeds consist

Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved,

When hit by impulse slight. So water moves,

In waves along, at impulse just the least—

Being create of little shapes that roll;

But, contrariwise, the quality of honey

More stable is, its liquids more inert,

More tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter

Cleaves more together, since, indeed, 'tis made

Of atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round

The farmer, in the pride of sea-won acres,

Showed me his honey mill, the honey-gate.

Late afternoon was hazy on the land,

The sun was a warm gauzy providence.

The honey mill, the honey-gate. And then,

Near by, the bees. They came in from the fields,

The sun behind them, from the fields and trees,

Like soft banners, waving from the sea.

He told me of their thousands, their ways.

Of pounds of honey in the homely apiaries.

The stores were almost full, in Autumn air,

Against the coming chill, and the long cold.

He was about ready to rob them now,

The combs. He'd leave them just enough to keep them.

I thought it a rather subtle point he made,

Wishing Providence would be as sure of us.

KING

Where is the Crowne? Who took it from my Pillow?

WARWICK

When wee with-drew (my Liege) we left it here.

KING

The Prince hath ta'ne it hence: Go seek him out.

Is hee so hastie, that hee doth suppose

My sleepe, my death? Find him (my lord of Warwick)

Chide him hither: This part of his conioynes

With my disease, and helpes to end me.

See Sonnes, what things you are,

How quickly Nature falls into reuolt,

When Gold becomes her Obiect?

For this, the foolish ouer-carefull Fathers

Haue broke their sleepes with thoughts,

Their braines with care, their bones with industry.

For this, they haue ingrossed and pyl'd vp

The cank'red heapes of strange-atchieued Gold;

For this they haue beene thoughtfull to inuest

Their Sonnes with Arts, and Martiall Exercises;

When, like the Bee, culling from euery flower

The vertuous Sweets, our Thighes packt with wax,

Our Mouthes with Honey, wee bring it to the Hiue;

And like the bees, Are murthered for our paines.

This bitter taste yields his engrossments,

To the ending father.

Now, when thou hast decreed to seize their stores,

And by prerogative to break their doors,

With sprinkled water first the city choke,

And then pursue the citizens with smoke

At length the crackling noise & dreadful blaze

Call'd up some waking lover to the sight;

& long it was ere he the rest could raise,

Whose heavy eyelids yet were full of night.

The next to danger, hot pursued by fate,

Half cloth'd, half naked, hastily retire:

& frighted mothers strike their breasts, too late,

For helpless infants left amidst the fire.

Their cries soon waken all the dwellers near;

Now murmuring noises rise in every street;

The more remote run stumbling with their fear,

&, in the dark, men justle as they meet.

So weary bees in little cells repose;

But if night-robbers lift the well-stor'd hive,

An humming through their waxen city grows,

& out upon each other's wings they drive

Often in summer, on a tarred bridge plank standing,

Or downstream between willows, a safe Ophelia drifting

In a rented boat—I had seen them come & go,

Those wild bees swift as tigers, their gauze wings a-glitter

In passionless industry, clustering black at the crevice

Of a rotten cabbage tree, where their hive was hidden low.

But never strolled too near. Till one half-cloudy evening

Of ripe January, my friends & I

Came, gloved & masked to the eyes like plundering

 desperadoes,

To smoke them out. Quiet beside the stagnant river

We trod wet grasses down, hearing the crickets chitter

& waiting for light to drain from the wounded sky.

Before we reached the hive their sentries saw us

& sprang invisible through the darkening air,

Stabbed, & died in stinging. The hive woke. Poisonous

 fuming

Of sulphur filled the hollow trunk, & crawling

Blue flame sputtered—yet still their suicidal

Live raiders dived & clung to our hands & hair.

O it was Carthage under the Roman torches,

Or loud with flames & falling timber, Troy!

A job well botched. Half of the honey melted

& half the rest young grubs. Through earth-black

 smouldering ashes

& maimed bees groaning, we drew out our plunder.

Little enough their gold, & slight our joy.

Fallen then the city of instinctive wisdom.

Tragedy is written distinct & small:

A hive burned on a cool night in summer.

But loss is a precious stone to me, a nectar

Distilled in time, preaching the truth of winter

To the fallen heart that does not cease to fall.

Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers—

The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.

In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,

& they are all gloved & covered, why did nobody tell me?

They are smiling & taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?

Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock

Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists & the slit from my neck to my knees.

Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.

They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.

Which is the rector now, is it that man in black?

Which is the midwife, is that her blue coat?

Everybody is nodding a square black head, they are knights in visors,

Breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits.

Their smiles & their voices are changing. I am led through a beanfield.

Strips of tinfoil winking like people,

Feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers,

Creamy bean flowers with black eyes & leaves like bored hearts.

Is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string?

No, no, it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible.

Now they are giving me a fashionable white straw Italian hat

& a black veil that molds to my face, they are making me one of them.

They are leading me to the shorn grove, the circle of hives.

Is it the hawthorn that smells so sick?

The barren body of hawthorn, etherizing its children.

Is it some operation that is taking place?

Is it the surgeon my neighbors are waiting for,

This apparition in a green helmet,

Shining gloves & white suit.

Is it the butcher, the grocer, the postman, someone I know?

I cannot run, I am rooted, & the gorse hurts me

With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.

I could not run without having to run forever.

The white hive is snug as a virgin,

Sealing off her brood cells, her honey, & quietly humming.

Smoke rolls & scarves in the grove.

The mind of the hive thinks this is the end of everything.

Here they come, the outriders, on their hysterical elastics.

If I stand very still, they will think I am cow-parsley,

A gullible head untouched by their animosity,

Not even nodding, a personage in a hedgerow.

The villagers open the chambers, they are hunting the queen.

Is she hiding, is she eating honey? She is very clever.

She is old, old, old, she must live another year, & she knows it.

While in their fingerjoint cells the new virgins

Dream of a duel they will win inevitably,

A curtain of wax dividing them from the bride flight,

The upflight of the murderess into a heaven that loves her.

The villagers are moving the virgins, there will be no killing.

The old queen does not show herself, is she so ungrateful?

I am exhausted, I am exhausted—

Pillar of white in a blackout of knives.

I am the magician's girl who does not flinch.

The villagers are untying their disguises, they are shaking hands.

Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am

I cold.

The other sceptre-bearing States arose too, and obey'd

The people's Rector. Being abroad, the earth was overlaid

With flockers to them, that came forth, as when of frequent bees

Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees

Of their egression endlessly, with ever rising new

From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, grew,

And never would cease sending forth her clusters to the spring,

They still crowd out so; this fleck here, that there, belabouring

The loaded flow'rs; so from the ships & tents the army's store

Troop'd to these princes & the court, along th' unmeasur'd shore;

Amongst whom, Jove's ambassadress, Fame, in her virtue shin'd,

Exciting greediness to hear. The rabble, thus inclin'd,

Hurried together; uproar seiz'd the high court; earth did groan

Beneath the settling multitude; tumult was there alone

It is better to trust in the Lord

    than to put confidence in princes.

All nations compassed me about:

    but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them.

They compassed me about;

 yea, they compassed me about:

     but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

They compassed me about like bees:

    they are quenched as the fire of thorns:

        for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall:

    but the Lord helped me

Prone to revenge, the bees, a wrathful race,

When once provoked, assault the aggressor's face,

And through the purple veins a passage find;

There fix their stings, and leave their souls behind

Anger in its time and place

May assume a kind of grace.

It must have some reason in it,

And not last beyond a minute.

If to further lengths it go,

It does into malice grow.

'Tis the difference that we see

Twixt the serpent and the bee.

If the latter you provoke,

It inflicts a hasty stroke.

Puts you to some little pain,

But it never stings again.

Close in tufted bush or brake

Lurks the poison-swelled snake

Nursing up his cherish'd wrath;

In the purlieux of his path,

In the cold, or in the warm,

Mean him good, or mean him harm,

Whensoever fate may bring you,

The vile snake will always sting you.

None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,

Or stood aside for the half used life to pass

Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,

When the swift iron burning bee

Drained the wild honey of their youth

But, if intestine broils alarm the hive,

(For two pretenders oft for empire strive,)

The vulgar in divided factions jar;

And murmuring sounds proclaim the civil war.

Inflamed with ire, and trembling with disdain,

Scarce can their limbs their mighty souls contain.

With shouts, the coward's courage they excite,

And martial clangors call them out to fight;

With hoarse alarms the hollow camp rebounds,

That imitate the trumpet's angry sounds;

Then to their common standard they repair;

The nimble horsemen scour the fields of air;

In form of battle drawn, they issue forth,

And every knight is proud to prove his worth.

Prest for their country's honour, and their king's,

On their sharp beaks they whet their pointed stings,

& exercise their arms, & tremble with their wings.

Full in the midst the haughty monarchs ride;

The trusty guards come up, and close the side;

With shouts the daring foe to battle is defied.

Thus, in the season of unclouded spring,

To war they follow their undaunted king,

Crowd through their gates, &, in the fields of light,

The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight.

Headlong they fall from high, &, wounded, wound,

And heaps of slaughtered soldiers bite the ground.

Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain,

Nor shaken oaks such showers of acorns rain.

With gorgeous wings, the marks of sovereign sway,

The two contending princes make their way;

Intrepid through the midst of danger go,

Their friends encourage and amaze the foe.

With mighty souls in narrow bodies prest,

They challenge, and encounter breast to breast;

So fixed on fame, unknowing how to fly,

And obstinately bent to win or die,

That long the doubtful combat they maintain,

Till one prevails—for one can only reign.

Yet all these dreadful deeds, this deadly fray,

A cast of scattered dust will soon allay,

And undecided leave the fortune of the day.

When both the chiefs are sundered from the fight,

Then to the lawful king restore his right;

And let the wasteful prodigal be slain,

That he, who best deserves, alone may reign.

With ease distinguished is the regal race:

One monarch wears an honest open face;

Shaped to his size, and godlike to behold,

His royal body shines with specks of gold,

And ruddy scales; for empire he designed,

Is better born, and of a nobler kind.

That other looks like nature in disgrace:

Gaunt are his sides, and sullen is his face;

& like their grisly prince appear his gloomy race,

Grim, ghastly, rugged, like a thirsty train

That long have travelled through a desert plain,

& spit from their dry chaps the gathered dust again.

The better brood, unlike the bastard crew,

Are marked with royal streaks of shining hue;

Glittering and ardent, though in body less:

From these, at pointed seasons, hope to press

Huge heavy honeycombs, of golden juice,

Not only sweet, but pure, and fit for use,

To allay the strength and hardness of the wine,

And with old Bacchus new metheglin join.

But, when the swarms are eager of their play,

And loath their empty hives, and idly stray,

Restrain the wanton fugitives, and take

A timely care to bring the truants back.

The task is easy—but to clip the wings

Of their high-flying arbitrary kings.

At their command, the people swarm away:

Confine the tyrant, and the slaves will stay

   I catch it under foot | I may have found it.

   Listen, this earth can avail | against every creature

   & against its opponent | & against the lack of care

   & against the greatness | of the human tongue.

   Sit down, victorious lady, | sink to the earth!

   Never would you fly | into the woods.

   Be so mindful | of my good,

   As is every man | of food & his home.

As of all states the Monarchy is best,

So of all Monarchies the Feminine,

Of famous Amazons excels the rest,

That on this earthly Sphere have ever been,

    Whose little hearts in weaker sex

        (so great in field)

    No powers of the mightiest Males

        can make to yield:

They living aye, most sober and most chaste,

Their pain-got goods in pleasures scorn to waste.

They work in common for the common weal:

Their labour's restless to maintain their state:

Their Hexagonia no Bezaleel,

For curious Art may pass, or imitate,

    One Sovereign and but one commands

        this people loyal,

    The great Marpesse with plenty blest

        of issue royal:

Antiope, and Orithyia fair,

With other princes her Infantes are.

When so increased is this prudent Nation,

That their own limits cannot them suffice;

To seek new Cities, for new habitation,

They send abroad their numerous Colonies:

    Antiope the prime Prince gone,

        Orithyia soon

    Of her Queen-mother, making moan,

        begs the like boon

That with her train her fortune she may seek:

And this she sings in measures mournful sweet.

To whose grave accents if her Princely Grace

Vouchsafe with Trine Aspect reply to make,

To sweetest Treble tuning sweeter Bass:

Her mournful suit a joyful end doth take:

    And then, when fit time they espy,

        Some thousands strong

    This army royal gallantly

        Doth march along.

Hark, hark, me thinks I hear in notes of choice,

This fairest lady's sweetest mournful voice.

But all this while she doth chant it alone,

Most humbly begging in her doric strains,

Of her dear liege leave to be gone,

But comfort none she yet obtains.

Her mother's silence makes her much to doubt,

Her grace unto her will this grace deny:

But still her suit she doth hold out,

In home at last to move pity.

Importunate Orithya now hath won

Her stern Queen-Mother's grant to her desire:

    For joy, her sisters all as one

    With cheerful tones fill up the choir.

These ladies musical comfort assures

The prince her much-desire Sovereignty.

    The vulgar, when occasion serves,

    (This watch-word past) abroad do hie,

Where treading the hay, right nimbly they prance,

Thus waiting their Prince in and out they trace:

    Who come, these maids the Morris dance,

    Along unto their resting-place.

But, if the labouring kind be wholly lost,

And not to be retrieved with care or cost;

'Tis time to touch the precepts of an art,

The Arcadian master did of old impart;

And how he stocked his empty hives again,

Renewed with putrid gore of oxen slain.

An ancient legend I prepare to sing,

And upward follow Fame's immortal spring:—

For, where with seven-fold horns mysterious Nile

Surrounds the skirts of Egypt's fruitful isle,

And where in pomp the sun-burnt people ride,

On painted barges, o'er the teeming tide,

Which, pouring down from Ethiopian lands,

Makes green the soil with slime, & black prolific sands—

That length of region, and large tract of ground,

In this one art a sure relief have found.

First, in a place by nature close, they build

A narrow flooring, guttered, walled, and tiled.

In this, four windows are contrived, that strike,

To the four winds opposed, their beams oblique.

A steer of two years old they take, whose head

Now first with burnished horns begins to spread:

They stop his nostrils, while he strives in vain

To breathe free air, and struggles with his pain.

Knocked down, he dies: his bowels, bruised within,

Betray no wound on his unbroken skin.

Extended thus, in this obscene abode

They leave the beast; but first sweet flowers are strowed

Beneath his body, broken boughs and thyme,

And pleasing cassia just renewed in prime.

This must be done, ere spring makes equal day,

When western winds on curling waters play;

Ere painted meads produce their flowery crops,

Or swallows twitter on the chimney-tops.

The tainted blood, in this close prison pent,

Begins to boil, and through the bones ferment.

Then (wonderous to behold) new creatures rise,

A moving mass at first, and short of thighs;

'Till, shooting out with legs, and imp'd with wings,

The grubs proceed to bees with pointed stings;

And, more and more affecting air, they try

Their tender pinions, and begin to fly:

At length, like summer storms from spreading clouds,

That burst at once, and pour impetuous floods—

Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows,

When from afar they gall embattled foes—

With such a tempest through the skies they steer,

And such a form the winged squadrons bear

A Farmer of the Augustan Age

Perused in Virgil's golden page

The story of the secret won

From Proteus by Cyrene's son—

How the dank sea-god showed the swain

Means to restore his hives again.

More briefly, how a slaughtered bull

Breeds honey by the bellyful.

The egregious rustic put to death

A bull by stopping of its breath,

Disposed the carcass in a shed

With fragrant herbs and branches spread,

And, having well performed the charm,

Sat down to wait the promised swarm.

Nor waited long. The God of Day

Impartial, quickening with his ray

Evil and good alike, beheld

The carcass—and the carcass swelled.

Big with new birth the belly heaves

Beneath its screen of scented leaves.

Past any doubt, the bull conceives!

The farmer bids men bring more hives

To house the profit that arrives;

Prepares on pan and key and kettle,

Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;

But when to crown the work he goes,

Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!

Where are the honest toilers? Where

The gravid mistress of their care?

A busy scene, indeed, he sees,

But not a sign or sound of bees.

Worms of the riper grave unhid

By any kindly coffin-lid,

Obscene and shameless to the light,

Seethe in insatiate appetite,

Through putrid offal, while above

The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,

Whose offspring, supping where they supt,

Consume corruption twice corrupt.

A sweet tooth taught us to admire

The bees before we'd made a fire:

Nemorivagrant tribes at least

Could serve wild honey at a feast.

Accustomed in hard times to clem,

We started soon to envy them

An industry that stocks their shelves

With more food than they need themselves.

By Estimation, too, inclined

Towards a social stead of kind,

We sought from study of their hives

To draw some moral for our lives,

And when conspiracy, revolt,

Gave Princes of this world a jolt,

Philosopher and Christian Preacher

Upheld the Bee as Civics Teacher.

Now bestiaries are out, for now

Research has demonstrated how

They actually behave, they strike us

As being horridly unlike us:

Though some believe (and even plan

To do it) that from Urban Man,

By Advertising plus the aid

Of drugs, an insect might be made:

No. Who can learn to love his neighbor

From neuters whose one love is labor,

To rid his Government of knaves

From commonwealths controlled by slaves?

How, for us children of the word,

Anthropomorphic and absurd

To ask what code they satisfy

When they swoop out to sting and die

Or what catharsis undergo

When they put on their biggest show,

A duel to the death between

A tooting and a quacking Queen.

But what if I unveil the figure that closely beside you

Half hides his Hell-charred skeleton with mysteries obscene,

That foul one, that Moloch of all Utopias, ancient

Poisoner & destroyer-elect of innumerous unborn?

Know you the story of our hive-bees, the yellow honey-makers,

Whose images from of old have haunted Pōetry, settling

On the blossoms of man's dream-garden, as on the summer-flow'rs,

Pictures of happy toil, sunny glances, gendering always

Such sweet thoughts, as be by slumbrous music awaken'd?

How all their outward happiness,—that fairy demeanour

Of busy contentment, singing at their work,—is an inborn

Empty habit, the relics of a time when considerate joy

Truly possest their tiny bodies; when golden abundance

Was not a State-kept hoard; when feasts were plentiful indulg'd

With wine well-fermented, or old-stored spicy metheglin:

For they died not then miserably within the second moon

Forgotten, unrespected of all; but slept many winters,

Saw many springs, liv'd, lov'd like men, consciously rejoicing

In Nature's promises, with like hopes and recollections.

Intelligence had brought them Scīence, Genius enter'd;

Seers and sages arose, great Bees, perfecting among them

Copious inventions, with man's art worthily compared.

Then was a time when that, which haps not in ages of ages,

Strangely befel: they stole from Nature's secresy one key,

Found the hidden motive which works to varīety of kind;

And thus came wondrously possest of pow'r to determine

Their children's qualities, habitudes, yea their specialized form

Masculine or feminine to produce, or asexual offspring

Redow'rd and differenced with such alternative organs

As they chose, to whate'er preferential function adapted,

Wax-pocket or honey-bag, with an instinct rightly acordant.

We know well the result, but not what causes effected

Their decision to prefer so blindly the race to the unit,

As to renounce happiness for a problem, a vain abstraction;

Making home and kingdom a vast egg-factory, wherein

Food and life are stor'd up alike, and strictly proportion'd

In loveless labour with mean anxīety. Wondrous

Their reason'd motive, their altrūistic obedience

Unto a self-impos'd life-sentence of prison or toil.

Wonder wisely! then ask if these ingenious insects,

(Who made Natur' against her will their activ' acomplice,

And, methodizing anew her heartless system, averted

From their house the torrent of whelming natural increase,)

Are blood-guiltless among their own-born prógeny: What skill

Keeps their peace, or what price buys it? Alack! 'tis murder,

Murder again. No worst Oriental despot, assuring

'Gainst birthright or faction or envy his ill-gotten empire,

So decimates his kin, as do these rown-bodied egg-queens

Surprise competitors, and stab their slumbering infants,

Into the wax-cradles replunging their double-edged stings.

Or what a deed of blood some high-day, when the summer hath

Their clammy cells o'erbrim'd, and already ripening orchards

And late flow'rs proclaim that starving winter approacheth,

Nor will again any queen lead forth her swarm, dispeopling

Their strawbuilt citadel; then watch how these busy workers

Cease for awhile from toil; how crowding upon the devoted

Drones they fall; those easy fellows gave some provocation;

Yet 'tis a foul massacre, cold murder of unsuspecting

Life-long companions; and done bloodthirstily:—is not

Exercise of pow'r a delight? have yóu not a doctrine

That calls duty pleasure? What an if they make merry, saying

'Lazy-livers, runagates, evil beasts, greedy devourers,

'Too happy and too long ye've liv'd, unashamed to have outliv'd

'Your breeders, feeders, warmers and toiling attendants;

'Had-ye ever been worthy a public good to accomplish,

'Each had nobly perish'd long-ago. Unneeded, obese ones,

'Impious encumbrance, whose hope of service is over,

'Who did not, now can not, assist the community, Ye die!'

Many ingenious lovely things are gone

That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,

protected from the circle of the moon

That pitches common things about. There stood

Amid the ornamental bronze and stone

An ancient image made of olive wood—

And gone are Phidias' famous ivories

And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.

We too had many pretty toys when young:

A law indifferent to blame or praise,

To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong

Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;

Public opinion ripening for so long

We thought it would outlive all future days.

O what fine thought we had because we thought

That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.

All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,

And a great army but a showy thing;

What matter that no cannon had been turned

Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king

Thought that unless a little powder burned

The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting

And yet it lack all glory; and perchance

The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.

Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare

Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery

Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,

To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;

The night can sweat with terror as before

We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,

And planned to bring the world under a rule,

Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned

Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant

From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,

Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent

On master-work of intellect or hand,

No honour leave its mighty monument,

Has but one comfort left: all triumph would

But break upon his ghostly solitude.

But is there any comfort to be found?

Man is in love and loves what vanishes,

What more is there to say? That country round

None dared admit, if such a thought were his,

Incendiary or bigot could be found

To burn that stump on the Acropolis,

Or break in bits the famous ivories

Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.

Thus though the race of life they quickly run,

Which in the space of seven short years is done,

The immortal line in sure succession reigns;

The fortune of the family remains,

And grandsires' grandsires the long list contains.

Besides, not Egypt, India, Media, more,

With servile awe, their idol king adore:

While he survives, in concord and content

The commons live, by no divisions rent;

But the great monarch's death dissolves the government.

All goes to ruin; they themselves contrive

To rob the honey, and subvert the hive

                                 The vivid consciousness

That waking or dreaming, its twenty years, infallibly

Felt itself unitary, was now divided:

Like the dispersion of a broken hive: the brain-cells

And rent fragments of cells finding

After their communal festival of life particular deaths

The murmuring of Bees, has ceased

But murmuring of some

Posterior, prophetic,

Has simultaneous come.

The lower metres of the Year

When Nature's laugh is done –

The Revelations of the Book

Whose Genesis was June

Appropriate Creatures to her change

The Typic Mother sends –

As Accent fades to interval

With separating Friends

Till what we speculate, has been

And thoughts we will not show

More intimate with us become

Than Persons, that we know.

All day my husband pounds on the upstairs porch.

Screeches and grunts of wood as the wall is opened

keep the whole house tormented. He is trying to reach

the bees, he is after bees. This is the climax, an end

to two summers of small operations with sprays and ladders.

Last June on the porch floor I found them dead,

a sprinkle of dusty bugs, and next day a still worse

death, until, like falling in love, bee-haunted,

I swept up bigger and bigger loads of some hatch,

I thought, sickened, and sickening me, from what origin?

My life centered on bees, all floors were suspect. The search

was hopeless. Windows were shut. I never find

where anything comes from. But in June my husband's fierce

sallies began, inspections, cracks located

and sealed, insecticides shot; outside, the bees' course

watched, charted; books on bees read.

I tell you I swept up bodies every day on the porch.

Then they'd stop, the problem was solved; then they were there

again,

as the feelings make themselves known again, as they beseech

sleepers who live innocently in will and mind.

It is no surprise to those who walk with their tigers

that the bees were back, no surprise to me. But they had

left themselves so lack-luster, their black and gold furs

so deathly faded. Gray bugs that the broom hunted

were like a thousand little stops when some great lurch

of heart takes place, or a great shift of season.

November it came to an end. No bees. And I could watch

the floor, clean and cool, and, from windows, the cold land.

But this spring the thing began again, and his curse

went upstairs again, and his tinkering and reasoning and pride.

It is the man who takes hold. I lived from bees, but his force

went out after bees and found them in the wall where they hid.

And now in July he is tearing out the wall, and each

board ripped brings them closer to his hunting hand.

It is quiet, has been quiet for a while. He calls me, and I march

from a dream of bees to see them, winged and unwinged,

such a mess of interrupted life dumped on newspapers—

dirty clots of grubs, sawdust, stuck fliers, all smeared

together with old honey, they writhe, some of them, but who cares?

They go to the garbage, it is over, everything has been said.

But there is more. Wouldn't you think the bees had suffered

enough? This evening we go to a party, the breeze

dies, late, we are sticky in our old friendships and light-headed.

We tell our funny story about the bees.

At two in the morning we come home, and a friend,

a scientist, comes with us, in his car. We're going to save

the idea of the thing, a hundred bees, if we can find

so many unrotted, still warm but harmless, and leave

the rest. We hope that the neighbors are safe in bed,

taking no note of these private catastrophes.

He wants an enzyme in the flight-wing muscle. Not a bad

thing to look into. In the night we rattle and raise

the lid of the garbage can. Flashlights in hand,

we open newspapers, and the men reach in a salve

of happenings. I can't touch it. I hate the self-examined

who've killed the self. The dead are darker, but the others have

moved in the ooze toward the next moment. My God

one half-worm gets its wings right before our eyes.

Searching fingers sort and lay bare, they need

the idea of bees—& yet, under their touch, the craze

for life gets stronger in the squirming, whitish kind.

The men do it. Making a claim on the future, as love

makes a claim on the future, grasping. & I, underhand,

I feel it start, a terrible, lifelong heave

taking direction. Unpleading, the men prod

till all that grubby softness wants to give, to give.

"Tiny bee, thou honey-birdling,

Lord of all the forest flowers,

Fly away and gather honey,

Bring to me the forest-sweetness,

Found in Metsola's rich gardens,

And in Tapio's fragrant meadows,

From the petals of the flowers,

From the blooming herbs and grasses,

Thus to heal my hero's anguish,

Thus to heal his wounds of evil."

Thereupon the honey-birdling

Flies away on wings of swiftness,

Into Metsola's rich gardens,

Into Tapio's flowery meadows,

Gathers sweetness from the meadows,

With the tongue distills the honey

From the cups of seven flowers,

From the bloom of countless grasses;

Quick from Metsola returning,

Flying, humming, darting onward,

With his winglets honey-laden,

With the store of sweetest odors,

To the mother brings the balsam

The nearest Dream recedes – unrealized –

The Heaven we chase,

Like the June Bee – before the School Boy,

Invites the Race –

Stoops – to an easy Clover –

Dips – evades – teases – deploys –

Then – to the Royal Clouds

Lifts his light Pinnace –

Heedless of the Boy –

Staring – bewildered – at the mocking sky –

Homesick for steadfast Honey –

Ah, the Bee flies not

That brews that rare variety!

Then, when God bent His face

over the shining new world, then

they stopped the sun with a word,

a word burned cities to the ground.

When a word floated across the sky

like a rose-colored flame

eagles closed their wings, frightened

stars shrank against the moon.

But we worry about other things, and forget

that only the word glows and shines,

and the Gospel of John

tells us this word is God.

We've surrounded it with a wall,

with the narrow borders of this world,

and like bees in a deserted hive

the dead words rot and stink.

A month or twain to live on honeycomb

Is pleasant—but to eat it for a year

Is simply beastly. Thus the poet spake,

Feeling how sticky all his stomach was

With hivings of ten thousand cheated bees.

O wisdom that could shape immortal words

And frame a diet for dyspeptic man!

THIRD FISHERMAN

We would purge the land of these Drones, that robbe the Bee of her Hony.

I haven't told my garden yet –

Lest that should conquer me.

I haven't quite the strength now

To break it to the Bee –

I will not name it in the street

For shops would stare at me –

That one so shy – so ignorant

Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it –

Where I have rambled so –

Nor tell the loving forests

The day that I shall go –

Nor lisp it at the table –

Nor heedless by the way

Hint that within the Riddle

One will walk today –

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.

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.

Just the same as a month before,—

   The house and the trees,

The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—

   Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

Before them, under the garden wall,

   Forward and back,

Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,

   Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun

   Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was telling the bees of one

   Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps

   For the dead to-day:

Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps

   The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,

   With his cane to his chin,

The old man sat; and the chore-girl still

   Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since

   In my ear sounds on:—

"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!

   Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!

"Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,

But all that has happened, to us you must tell,

Or else we will give you no honey to sell!"

            A maiden in her glory,

  Upon her wedding-day,

            Must tell her Bees the story,

  Or else they'll fly away.

              Fly away—die away—

                Dwindle down and leave you!

              But if you don't deceive your Bees,

                Your Bees will not deceive you.

Poring on Cæsar's death with earnest eye,

I heard a fretful buzzing in the pane:

'Poor bee!' I cried, 'I'll help thee by-and-by;'

Then dropp'd mine eyes upon the page again.

Alas! I did not rise; I help'd him not:

In the great voice of Roman history

I lost the pleading of the window-bee,

And all his woes and troubles were forgot.

I could not change the Roman's destiny;

I might have set the honey-maker free.

Ere yet my heart was sweet Love's tomb,

Love laboured honey busily.

I was the hive and Love the bee,

My heart the honey-comb.

One very dark and chilly night

Pride came beneath and held a light.

The cruel vapours went through all,

Sweet Love was withered in his cell;

Pride took Love's sweets, and by a spell,

Did change them into gall;

And Memory tho' fed by Pride

Did wax so thin on gall,

Awhile she scarcely lived at all,

What marvel that she died?

Roses are planted where thorns grow,

And on the barren heath

Sing the honey bees

The bees build in the crevices

Of loosening masonry, and there

The mother birds bring grubs and flies.

My wall is loosening; honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned

On our uncertainty; somewhere

A man is killed, or a house burned,

Yet no clear fact to be discerned:

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;

Some fourteen days of civil war;

Last night they trundled down the road

That dead young soldier in his blood:

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,

The heart's grown brutal from the fare;

More substance in our enmities

Than in our love; O honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the stare.

I have been taught never to brag but now

I cannot help it: I keep

a beautiful garden, all abundance,

indiscriminate, pulling itself

from the stubborn earth: does it offend you

to watch me working in it,

touching my hands to the greening tips or

tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild

the living and the dead both

snap off in my hands?

I can stand for hours among the sweet

narcissus, silent as a point of bone.

I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer

than your grief. It is such a small thing

to be proud of, a garden. Today

there were scrub jays, quail,

a woodpecker knocking at the white-

and-black shapes of trees, and someone's lost rabbit

scratching under the barberry: is it

indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither,

and expurgate? Should I, too, not be loved?

It is only a little time, a little space.

Why not watch the grasses take up their colors in a rush

like a stream of kerosene being lit?

If I could not have made this garden beautiful

I wouldn't understand your suffering,

nor care for each the same, inflamed way.

I would have to stay only like the bees,

beyond consciousness, beyond

self-reproach, fingers dug down hard

into stone, and growing nothing.

There is no end to ego,

with its museum of disappointments.

I want to take my neighbors into the garden

and show them: Here is consolation.

Here is your pity. Look how much seed it drops

around the sparrows as they fight.

It lives alongside their misery.

It glows each evening with a violent light.

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,

accept this candle, a solemn offering,

the work of bees & of your servants' hands,

an evening sacrifice of praise,

this gift from your most holy Church.

But now we know the praises of this pillar,

which glowing fire ignites for God's honour,

a fire into many flames divided,

yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,

for it is fed by melting wax,

drawn out by mother bees

to build a torch so precious.

O truly blessed night,

when things of heaven are wed

to those of earth,

& divine to the human

The king presides, his subjects' toil surveys.

The servile rout their careful Cæsar praise:

Him they extol: they worship him alone;

They crowd his levees, and support his throne:

They raise him on their shoulders with a shout;

And, when their sovereign's quarrel calls them out,

His foes to mortal combat they defy,

And think it honour at his feet to die.

Induced by such examples, some have taught,

That bees have portions of ethereal thought—

Endued with particles of heavenly fires;

For God the whole created mass inspires.

Through heaven, & earth, & ocean's depth, he throws

His influence round, and kindles as he goes.

Hence flocks, & herds, & men, & beasts, & fowls,

With breath are quickened, and attract their souls;

Hence take the forms his prescience did ordain,

And into him at length resolve again.

No room is left for death: they mount the sky,

And to their own congenial planets fly

In fashion then as of a snow-white rose

Displayed itself to me the saintly host,

Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride,

But the other host, that flying sees and sings

The glory of Him who doth enamour it,

And the goodness that created it so noble,

Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers

One moment, and the next returns again

To where its labour is to sweetness turned,

Sank into the great flower, that is adorned

With leaves so many, and thence reascended

To where its love abideth evermore.

Their faces had they all of living flame,

And wings of gold, and all the rest so white

No snow unto that limit doth attain.

Because the light divine so penetrates

The universe, according to its merit,

That naught can be an obstacle against it

Describe we next the nature of the bees,

Bestowed by Jove for secret services,

When, by the tinkling sound of timbrels led,

The king of heaven in Cretan caves they fed

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered fantails once

And spread it so as to cover her face.

If her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

There are certain holy ones, sisters born—

three virgins gifted with wings:

their heads are besprinkled with white meal,

and they dwell under a ridge of Parnassus.

These are teachers of divination apart from me,

the art which I practised while yet a boy following

 herds,

though my father paid no heed to it.

From their home they fly now here, now there,

feeding on honey-comb & bringing all things to pass

& when they are inspired through eating yellow honey,

they are willing to speak truth;

but if they be deprived of the gods' sweet food,

then they speak falsely, as they swarm in & out together.

These, then, I give you;

enquire of them strictly & delight your heart:

& if you should teach any mortal so to do,

often will he hear your response—if he have

                                                  good fortune.

Take these, Son of Maia, and tend

the wild roving, horned oxen & horses &

                                                patient mules

No sooner landed, in his den they found

The triple porter of the Stygian sound,

Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear

His crested snakes, and arm'd his bristling hair.

The prudent Sibyl had before prepar'd

A sop, in honey steep'd, to charm the guard;

Which, mix'd with pow'rful drugs, she cast before

His greedy grinning jaws, just op'd to roar.

With three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,

With hunger press'd, devours the pleasing bait.

Long draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;

He reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave

It will Summer – eventually.

Ladies – with parasols –

Sauntering Gentlemen – with Canes –

And little Girls – with Dolls –

Will tint the pallid landscape –

As 'twere a bright Bouquet –

Tho' drifted deep, in Parian –

The village lies – today –

The Lilacs – bending many a year –

Will sway with purple load –

The Bees – will not despite the tune –

Their Forefathers – have hummed –

The Wild Rose – redden in the Bog –

The Aster – on the Hill

Her everlasting fashion – set –

And Covenant Gentians – frill –

Till Summer folds her miracle –

As Women – do – their Gown –

Or Priests – adjust the Symbols –

When Sacrament – is Done –

Antonius! yes, the winds blow free,

When Dirce's swan ascends the skies,

To waft him. I, like Matine bee,

In act and guise,

That culls its sweets thro' toilsome hours,

Am roaming Tibur's banks along,

& fashioning with puny powers

A laboured song

If thou hast found an honeycomb,

Eat thou not all, but taste on some:

For if thou eat'st it to excess,

That sweetness turns to loathsomeness.

Taste it to temper, then 'twill be

Marrow & manna unto thee.

Come slowly – Eden!

Lips unused to Thee –

Bashful – sip thy Jessamines –

As the fainting Bee –

Reaching late his flower,

Round her chamber hums, –

Counts his nectars –

Enters – and is lost in Balms.

What is song's eternity?

  Come and see.

Can it noise and bustle be?

  Come and see.

Praises sung or praises said

  Can it be?

Wait awhile and these are dead—

  Sigh, sigh;

Be they high or lowly bred

  They die.

What is song's eternity?

  Come and see.

Melodies of earth and sky,

  Here they be.

Song once sung to Adam's ears

  Can it be?

Ballads of six thousand years

  Thrive, thrive;

Songs awaken with the spheres

  Alive.

Mighty songs that miss decay,

  What are they?

Crowds and cities pass away

  Like a day.

Books are out and books are read;

  What are they?

Years will lay them with the dead

  Sigh, sigh;

Trifles unto nothing wed,

  They die.

Dreamers, mark the honey bee;

  Mark the tree

Where the blue cap "tootle tee"

  Sings a glee

Sung to Adam and to Eve—

  Here they be.

When floods covered every bough,

  Noah's ark

Heard that ballad singing now;

  Hark, hark,

"Tootle tootle tootle tee"—

  Can it be

Pride and fame must shadows be?

  Come and see—

Every season owns her own;

  Bird and bee

Sing creation's music on;

  Nature's glee

Is in every mood and tone

  Eternity.