NOTE: A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly
prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a
member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and
their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be
necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a
new home.
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 burs, 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 grandsire sleeps
The fret and 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!"
_John G. Whittier._
"Not Understood"
Not understood, we move along asunder,
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years. We marvel and we wonder,
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep,
Not understood.
Not understood, we gather false impressions,
And hug them closer as the years go by,
Till virtues often seem to us transgressions;
And thus men rise and fall and live and die,
Not understood.
Not understood, poor souls with stunted visions
Often measure giants by their narrow gauge;
The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision
Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age,
Not understood.
Not understood, the secret springs of action
Which lie beneath the surface and the show
Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction
We judge our neighbors, and they often go
Not understood.
Not understood, how trifles often change us--
The thoughtless sentence or the fancied slight--
Destroy long years of friendship and estrange us,
And on our souls there falls a freezing blight--
Not understood.
Not understood, how many hearts are aching
For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking,
How many noble spirits pass away
Not understood.
O God! that men would see a little clearer,
Or judge less hardly when they cannot see!
O God! that men would draw a little nearer
To one another! They'd be nearer Thee,
And understood.