Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/232

Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my honey-making bees,
They left the musk, and the marigolds and the scented faint sweet peas;
They gather'd in a darkening cloud, and sway'd, and rose to fly;
A blackness on the summer blue, they swept across the sky.
Gaunt and ghastly with gaping wounds—(my soldier son, alas!)
Footsore and faint, the messenger came halting through the grass.
The wind went by and shook the leaves—the mint-stalk shed its flower—
And I miss'd the murmuring round the hives, and my boding heart beat slower.
  His soul we cheer'd with meat and wine;
  With woman's craft and balsam fine
  We bathed his hurts, and bound them soft,
  While west the wind played through the croft,
  And the low sun dyed the pinks blood red,
  And, straying near the mint-flower shed,
  A wild bee wantoned o'er the bed.

He told how my son, at the shepherd's door, kept watch in Monmouth's clothes,
While Monmouth donned the shepherd's frock, in hope to cheat his foes.
  A couple of troopers spied him stand,
  And bade him yield to the king's command:
  "Surrender, thou rebel as good as dead,
  A price is set on thy traitor head!"
  My soldier son, with secret smile,
  Held both at bay for a little while,