The Bee.

What time I paced, at pleasant morn,     A deep and dewy wood,     I heard a mellow hunting-horn     Make dim report of Dian's lustihood     Far down a heavenly hollow.     Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow:     `Tara!' it twanged, `tara-tara!' it blew,     Yet wavered oft, and flew     Most ficklewise about, or here, or there,     A music now from earth and now from air.     But on a sudden, lo!     I marked a blossom shiver to and fro     With dainty inward storm; and there within     A down-drawn trump of yellow jessamine     A bee     Thrust up its sad-gold body lustily,     All in a honey madness hotly bound     On blissful burglary.         A cunning sound     In that wing-music held me: down I lay     In amber shades of many a golden spray,     Where looping low with languid arms the Vine     In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine     Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight     Herself unto her own true stalwart knight.     As some dim blur of distant music nears     The long-desiring sense, and slowly clears     To forms of time and apprehensive tune,     So, as I lay, full soon     Interpretation throve: the bee's fanfare,     Through sequent films of discourse vague as air,     Passed to plain words, while, fanning faint perfume,     The bee o'erhung a rich, unrifled bloom:     "O Earth, fair lordly Blossom, soft a-shine     Upon the star-pranked universal vine,     Hast nought for me?     To thee     Come I, a poet, hereward haply blown,     From out another worldflower lately flown.     Wilt ask, `What profit e'er a poet brings?'     He beareth starry stuff about his wings     To pollen thee and sting thee fertile: nay,     If still thou narrow thy contracted way,      - Worldflower, if thou refuse me -      - Worldflower, if thou abuse me,     And hoist thy stamen's spear-point high     To wound my wing and mar mine eye -     Nathless I'll drive me to thy deepest sweet,     Yea, richlier shall that pain the pollen beat     From me to thee, for oft these pollens be     Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee.     But, O beloved Earthbloom soft a-shine     Upon the universal Jessamine,     Prithee, abuse me not,     Prithee, refuse me not,     Yield, yield the heartsome honey love to me     Hid in thy nectary!"     And as I sank into a dimmer dream     The pleading bee's song-burthen sole did seem:     "Hast ne'er a honey-drop of love for me     In thy huge nectary?"     Tampa, Florida, 1877.