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John Greenleaf Whittier - Telling the Bees
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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.  

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.  

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, 
   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!"
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