A warming wind comes to my resting-place
And in a mountain cloud the lost sun chills;
Night comes, and yet before she shows her face
The sun flings off the shadows, warm light fills
The valley and the clearings on the hills,
Bleak crow the moorcocks on the fen’s blue plashes,
But here I warm myself with these bright looks and flashes.
And like to me the merry humble bee
Puts fear aside, runs forth to meet the sun
And by the ploughlands’ shoulder comes to see
The flowers that like him best, and seems to shun
Cold countless quaking windflowers every one,
Primroses too; but makes poor grass his choice
Where small wood-strawberry blossoms nestle and rejoice.
The magpies steering round from wood to wood,
Tree-creepers flicking up to elms’ green rind,
Bold gnats that revel round my solitude
And most this pleasant bee intent to find
The new-born joy, inveigle the rich mind
Long after darkness comes cold-lipped to one
Still hearkening to the bee, still basking in the sun.