  Glad music of the summer’s heart, Jargoning from flower to flower, A part of each unconscious hour Until the happy days depart! Thou dream-like toiler of the fields! Each honeyed spot thou knowest well Where Nature’s heart her sweetness yields, Some ruined trunk thy citadel; There buildest a home for Winter’s hour In some lone, sunlight-haunted place, When all the year is at its power, And June’s high-tide on bank and bower Mirrors in blossoms Nature’s face. At early morn by breathing wood, Or in some dewy clover dell, Tuning the young day’s solitude,— Or down the slumbrous afternoon, Rich-freighted, wingest thy tuneful way, Self-musing, murmurous, musical; Sole voice of all the drowsÈd day, Until the gradual shadows fall:— Then, by some lonely pasture-fell At ruddy eve when homeward come Past deepening shade or fading ray The weary children of the day. I hear thy joyous, drowsy hum, Till stars peep out and woods breathe low, And sounds of human toil grow dumb, And Night, the blessÈd, comes apace, Bending to Earth’s her cooling face, While airs across the dark outblow: Then rocked on some glad blossom’s breast, Thou dreamest to rest. When Summer wanes to Autumn’s age, And come the days of fate and rage, O happy Humming Bee! Then wilt thou sink to wintry sleep, When storms are hoarse along the deep, In hushed tranquillity. No more wilt wind thy subtle horn By dreamy eve or misty morn, When trees are leafless, pastures shorn. Ah me! ah me! Could we, like thee, go down the days Housing, with what we built before, The gold of all our memory’s store And garnered thought; So when the bleak December’s hate Beat round the bastions of our fate, We, wrapt in wealth of honeyed dreams Of kindlier visions, far-off streams, Might heed it not. |
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