  Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows, Pink and the grass more thickly grows, Where small brown bees are winging To clamber up the stooping flowers, We’ll share the sweet and sunny hours Made murmurous with their singing. Dear, it requires no small address In such a billowy floweriness For you, so young, to sally: Yet would you still out-stay the sun And linger when his light was done Along the haunted valley. O small brown fingers, clutched to seize The biggest blooms, don’t spill the bees; Imagine what contempt he Would meet who ventured to arrive Home, of an evening, at the hive, With both his pockets empty! Moreover, if you steal their share, The bees become too poor to spare Their sweets nor part with any Honey at tea-time; so for you What were for them a cell too few Would be a sell too many! Or, what were worse for you and me, They might admire the industry So thoughtlessly paraded, And, tired of their brown queen, maintain That no one needed Betsey-Jane As urgently as they did. So should you taste in some far clime The plunder of eternal thyme And you would quite forget us, Our cottage and these English trees, When you were Queen of Honey Bees At Hybla or Hymettus. |
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