The White Bees   By: Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)

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