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    The White Bees
    The White Bees
    The White Bees
    Ebook95 pages51 minutes

    The White Bees

    By Henry Van Dyke

    ()

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    The White Bees
    Author

    Henry Van Dyke

    Henry Van Dyke (1928–2011) was born in Allegan, Michigan, and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where his parents were professors at Alabama State College. He served in the Army in occupied Germany, playing flute in the 427th Marching Band. There he abandoned his early ambition to become a concert pianist and began to write. In 1958, after attending the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill and living in Ann Arbor, he moved to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Henry taught creative writing part-time at Kent State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1993, and was the author of four novels, including Blood of Strawberries, a sequel to Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes.

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      Book preview

      The White Bees - Henry Van Dyke

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Bees, by Henry Van Dyke

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The White Bees

      Author: Henry Van Dyke

      Posting Date: May 13, 2009 [EBook #3757] Release Date: February, 2003 First Posted: August 21, 2001

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE BEES ***

      Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

      The White Bees

      by

      Henry van Dyke

      CONTENTS

      THE WHITE BEES

      NEW YEAR'S EVE

        SONGS FOR AMERICA

          Sea-Gulls of Manhattan

          Urbs Coronata

          America

          Doors of Daring

          A Home Song

          A Noon Song

          An American in Europe

          The Ancestral Dwellings

          Francis Makemie

          National Monuments

        IN PRAISE OF POETS

          Mother Earth

          Milton: Three Sonnets

          Wordsworth

          Keats

          Shelley

          Robert Browning

          Longfellow

          Thomas Bailey Aldrich

          Edmund Clarence Stedman

        LYRICS, DRAMATIC AND PERSONAL

          Late Spring

          Nepenthe

          Hesper

          Arrival

          Departure

          The Black Birds

          Without Disguise

          Gratitude

          Master of Music

          Stars and the Soul

          To Julia Marlowe

          Pan Learns Music

          Undine

          Love in a Look

          My April Lady

          A Lover's Envy

          The Hermit Thrush

          Fire-Fly City

          The Gentle Traveller

          Sicily, December, 1908

          The Window

          Twilight in the Alps

          Jeanne D'Arc

          Hudson's Last Voyage

      THE WHITE BEES AND OTHER POEMS

      THE WHITE BEES

      I

      LEGEND

        Long ago Apollo called to Aristaeus, youngest

            of the shepherds,

          Saying, I will make you keeper of my bees.

        Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;

            golden, too, the music,

          Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.

        Happy Aristaeus loitered in the garden, wandered

            in the orchard,

          Careless and contented, indolent and free;

        Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure,

            till the fated moment

          When across his pathway came Eurydice.

        Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him;

            drove him wild with longing,

          For the perfect sweetness of her flower-like face;

        Eagerly he followed, while she fled before him,

            over mead and mountain,

          On through field and forest, in a breathless

            race.

        But the nymph, in flying, trod upon a serpent;

             like a dream she vanished;

          Pluto's chariot bore her down among the dead;

        Lonely Aristaeus, sadly home returning, found his

             garden empty,

          All the hives deserted, all the music fled.

        Mournfully bewailing,—"ah, my honey-makers,

             where have you departed?"—

          Far and wide he sought them, over sea and shore;

        Foolish is the tale that says he ever found them,

             brought them home in triumph,—

          Joys that once escape us fly for evermore.

        Yet I dream that somewhere, clad in downy

             whiteness, dwell the honey-makers,

          In aerial gardens that no mortal sees:

        And at times returning, lo, they flutter round us,

             gathering mystic harvest,—

          So I weave the legend of the long-lost bees.

      II

      THE SWARMING OF THE BEES

      I

        Who can tell the hiding of the white bees'

            nest?

        Who can trace the guiding of their swift home

            flight?

        Far would be his riding on a life-long quest:

          Surely ere it ended would his beard grow

              white.

        Never in the coming of the rose-red Spring,

          Never in the passing of the wine-red Fall,

        May you hear the humming of the white bee's

              wing

          Murmur o'er the meadow, ere the night bells

              call.

        Wait till winter hardens in the cold grey sky,

          Wait till leaves are fallen and the brooks all

              freeze,

        Then above the gardens where the dead flowers

              lie,

          Swarm the merry millions of the wild white

              bees.

      II

        Out of the high-built airy hive,

        Deep in the clouds that veil the sun,

        Look how the first of the swarm arrive;

        Timidly venturing, one by one,

        Down through the tranquil air,

        Wavering here and there,

        Large, and lazy in flight,—

        Caught by a lift of the breeze,

        Tangled among the naked trees,—

        Dropping then, without a sound,

        Feather-white, feather-light,

        To their rest on the ground.

      III

        Thus the swarming is begun.

        Count the leaders, every one

        Perfect as a perfect star

        Till the slow descent is done.

        Look beyond them, see how far

        Down the vistas dim and grey,

        Multitudes are on the way.

        Now a sudden brightness

        Dawns within the sombre day,

        Over fields of whiteness;

        And the sky is swiftly

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