_Memorial Obituaries Pumphrey Funeral Home Imirie, Jr., George _ 
(http://obit.pumphreyfuneralhome.com/obit_display.cgi?id=455601&clientid=pumphreyfuneralhom
e&listing=Found) 


Telling the Bees, by Whittier
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 
burrs, 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 old grandsire sleeps The fret 
and the 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!" 



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************