Telling the Bees

By John Greenleaf Whittier

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!"

Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.The lyrical form of this poem is abab.