The humble bee
No skep has he,
No twisted, straw-thatched dome,
A ferny crest
Provides his nest,
The mowing-grass his home.
The crook-beaked shrike
His back may spike
And pierce him with a thorn;
The humble bee
A tramp is he
And there is none to mourn.
O'er bank and brook,
In wooded nook,
He wanders at his whim,
Lives as he can,
Owes naught to man,
And man owes naught to him.
No hive receives
The sweets he gives,
No flowers for him are sown,
Yet wild and gay
He hums his way,
A nomad on his own.
MISS JESSIE POPE.
May 20, 1914.
"Treasure Island"
A lover breeze to the roses pleaded,
Failed and faltered, took heart and advanced;
Up over the peaches, unimpeded,
A great Red Admiral ducked and danced;
But the boy with the book saw not, nor heeded,
Reading entranced--entranced!
He read, nor knew that the fat bees bumbled;
He woke no whit to the tea-bell's touch,
The browny pigeons that wheeled and tumbled,
(For how should a pirate reck of such?).
He read, and the flaming flower-beds crumbled,
At tap of the sea-cook's crutch!
And lo, there leapt for him dolphins running
The peacock seas of the buccaneer,
Lone, savage reefs where the seals lay sunning,
The curve of canvas, the creak of gear;
For ever the Master's wondrous cunning
Lent him of wizard lear!
* * * *
But lost are the garden days of leisure,
Lost with their wide-eyed ten-year-old,
Yet if you'd move to a bygone measure,
Or shape your heart to an ancient mould,
Maroons and schooners and buried treasure
Wrought on a page of gold,--
Then take the book in the dingy binding,
Still the magic comes, bearded, great,
And swaggering files of sea-thieves winding
Back, with their ruffling cut-throat gait,
Reclaim an hour when we first went finding
Pieces of Eight--of Eight.
P. R. CHALMERS.
July 5, 1911.