HONEY MEADOW
Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows,Pink and the grass more thickly grows,Where small brown bees are wingingTo clamber up the stooping flowers,We’ll share the sweet and sunny hoursMade murmurous with their singing.Dear, it requires no small addressIn such a billowy flowerinessFor you, so young, to sally:Yet would you still out-stay the sunAnd linger when his light was doneAlong the haunted valley.O small brown fingers, clutched to seizeThe biggest blooms, don’t spill the bees;Imagine what contempt heWould meet who ventured to arriveHome, of an evening, at the hive,With both his pockets empty!Moreover, if you steal their share,The bees become too poor to spareTheir sweets nor part with anyHoney at tea-time; so for youWhat were for them a cell too fewWould be a sell too many!Or, what were worse for you and me,They might admire the industrySo thoughtlessly paraded,And, tired of their brown queen, maintainThat no one needed Betsey-JaneAs urgently as they did.So should you taste in some far climeThe plunder of eternal thymeAnd you would quite forget us,Our cottage and these English trees,When you were Queen of Honey BeesAt Hybla or Hymettus.
Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows,Pink and the grass more thickly grows,Where small brown bees are wingingTo clamber up the stooping flowers,We’ll share the sweet and sunny hoursMade murmurous with their singing.Dear, it requires no small addressIn such a billowy flowerinessFor you, so young, to sally:Yet would you still out-stay the sunAnd linger when his light was doneAlong the haunted valley.O small brown fingers, clutched to seizeThe biggest blooms, don’t spill the bees;Imagine what contempt heWould meet who ventured to arriveHome, of an evening, at the hive,With both his pockets empty!Moreover, if you steal their share,The bees become too poor to spareTheir sweets nor part with anyHoney at tea-time; so for youWhat were for them a cell too fewWould be a sell too many!Or, what were worse for you and me,They might admire the industrySo thoughtlessly paraded,And, tired of their brown queen, maintainThat no one needed Betsey-JaneAs urgently as they did.So should you taste in some far climeThe plunder of eternal thymeAnd you would quite forget us,Our cottage and these English trees,When you were Queen of Honey BeesAt Hybla or Hymettus.
Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows,Pink and the grass more thickly grows,Where small brown bees are wingingTo clamber up the stooping flowers,We’ll share the sweet and sunny hoursMade murmurous with their singing.
Dear, it requires no small addressIn such a billowy flowerinessFor you, so young, to sally:Yet would you still out-stay the sunAnd linger when his light was doneAlong the haunted valley.
O small brown fingers, clutched to seizeThe biggest blooms, don’t spill the bees;Imagine what contempt heWould meet who ventured to arriveHome, of an evening, at the hive,With both his pockets empty!
Moreover, if you steal their share,The bees become too poor to spareTheir sweets nor part with anyHoney at tea-time; so for youWhat were for them a cell too fewWould be a sell too many!
Or, what were worse for you and me,They might admire the industrySo thoughtlessly paraded,And, tired of their brown queen, maintainThat no one needed Betsey-JaneAs urgently as they did.
So should you taste in some far climeThe plunder of eternal thymeAnd you would quite forget us,Our cottage and these English trees,When you were Queen of Honey BeesAt Hybla or Hymettus.