The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Bees, by Henry Van Dyke

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Title: The White Bees

Author: Henry Van Dyke

Posting Date: May 13, 2009 [EBook #3757] Release Date: February, 2003 First Posted: August 21, 2001

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE BEES ***

Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

The White Bees

by

Henry van Dyke

CONTENTS

THE WHITE BEES

NEW YEAR'S EVE

  SONGS FOR AMERICA
    Sea-Gulls of Manhattan
    Urbs Coronata
    America
    Doors of Daring
    A Home Song
    A Noon Song
    An American in Europe
    The Ancestral Dwellings
    Francis Makemie
    National Monuments

  IN PRAISE OF POETS
    Mother Earth
    Milton: Three Sonnets
    Wordsworth
    Keats
    Shelley
    Robert Browning
    Longfellow
    Thomas Bailey Aldrich
    Edmund Clarence Stedman

  LYRICS, DRAMATIC AND PERSONAL
    Late Spring
    Nepenthe
    Hesper
    Arrival
    Departure
    The Black Birds
    Without Disguise
    Gratitude
    Master of Music
    Stars and the Soul
    To Julia Marlowe
    Pan Learns Music
    "Undine"
    Love in a Look
    My April Lady
    A Lover's Envy
    The Hermit Thrush
    Fire-Fly City
    The Gentle Traveller
    Sicily, December, 1908
    The Window
    Twilight in the Alps
    Jeanne D'Arc
    Hudson's Last Voyage

THE WHITE BEES AND OTHER POEMS

THE WHITE BEES

I

LEGEND

  Long ago Apollo called to Aristaeus, youngest
      of the shepherds,
    Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees."
  Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
      golden, too, the music,
    Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.

  Happy Aristaeus loitered in the garden, wandered
      in the orchard,
    Careless and contented, indolent and free;
  Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure,
      till the fated moment
    When across his pathway came Eurydice.

  Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him;
      drove him wild with longing,
    For the perfect sweetness of her flower-like face;
  Eagerly he followed, while she fled before him,
      over mead and mountain,
    On through field and forest, in a breathless
      race.

  But the nymph, in flying, trod upon a serpent;
       like a dream she vanished;
    Pluto's chariot bore her down among the dead;
  Lonely Aristaeus, sadly home returning, found his
       garden empty,
    All the hives deserted, all the music fled.

  Mournfully bewailing,—"ah, my honey-makers,
       where have you departed?"—
    Far and wide he sought them, over sea and shore;
  Foolish is the tale that says he ever found them,
       brought them home in triumph,—
    Joys that once escape us fly for evermore.

  Yet I dream that somewhere, clad in downy
       whiteness, dwell the honey-makers,
    In aerial gardens that no mortal sees:
  And at times returning, lo, they flutter round us,
       gathering mystic harvest,—
    So I weave the legend of the long-lost bees.

II

THE SWARMING OF THE BEES

I

  Who can tell the hiding of the white bees'
      nest?
  Who can trace the guiding of their swift home
      flight?
  Far would be his riding on a life-long quest:
    Surely ere it ended would his beard grow
        white.

  Never in the coming of the rose-red Spring,
    Never in the passing of the wine-red Fall,
  May you hear the humming of the white bee's
        wing
    Murmur o'er the meadow, ere the night bells
        call.

  Wait till winter hardens in the cold grey sky,
    Wait till leaves are fallen and the brooks all
        freeze,
  Then above the gardens where the dead flowers
        lie,
    Swarm the merry millions of the wild white
        bees.

II

  Out of the high-built airy hive,
  Deep in the clouds that veil the sun,
  Look how the first of the swarm arrive;
  Timidly venturing, one by one,
  Down through the tranquil air,
  Wavering here and there,
  Large, and lazy in flight,—
  Caught by a lift of the breeze,
  Tangled among the naked trees,—
  Dropping then, without a sound,
  Feather-white, feather-light,
  To their rest on the ground.

III

  Thus the swarming is begun.
  Count the leaders, every one
  Perfect as a perfect star
  Till the slow descent is done.
  Look beyond them, see how far
  Down the vistas dim and grey,
  Multitudes are on the way.
  Now a sudden brightness
  Dawns within the sombre day,
  Over fields of whiteness;
  And the sky is swiftly alive
  With the flutter and the flight
  Of the shimmering bees, that pour
  From the hidden door of the hive
  Till you can count no more.

IV

  Now on the branches of hemlock and pine
  Thickly they settle and cluster and swing,
  Bending them low; and the trellised vine
  And the dark elm-boughs are traced with a line
  Of beauty wherever the white bees cling.
  Now they are hiding the wrecks of the flowers,
  Softly, softly, covering all,
  Over the grave of the summer hours
  Spreading a silver pall.
  Now they are building the broad roof ledge,
  Into a cornice smooth and fair,
  Moulding the terrace, from edge to edge,
  Into the sweep of a marble stair.
  Wonderful workers, swift and dumb,
  Numberless myriads, still they come,
  Thronging ever faster, faster, faster!
  Where is their queen? Who is their master?
  The gardens are faded, the fields are frore,—
  How will they fare in a world so bleak?
  Where is the hidden honey they seek?
  What is the sweetness they toil to