Honey Harvest

Late in March, when the days are growing longer         And sight of early green     Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger,     Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen         The year's first honey-bees     Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know     This for the first sign of the honey-flow.     Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees     Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams     Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams     The honey. Now, if chilly April days     Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's     First week come in with sudden summer weather,     The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together,     And all day long the plundering hordes go round     And every overweighted blossom nods.     But from that gathered essence they compound     Honey more sweet than nectar of the gods.     Those blossoms fall ere June, warm June that brings     The small white Clover. Field by scented field,     Round farms like islands in the rolling weald,     It spreads thick-flowering or in wildness springs     Short-stemmed upon the naked downs, to yield     A richer store of honey than the Rose,     The Pink, the Honeysuckle. Thence there flows     Nectar of clearest amber, redolent         Of every flowery scent     That the warm wind upgathers as he goes.     In mid-July be ready for the noise     Of million bees in old Lime-avenues,     As though hot noon had found a droning voice     To ease her soul. Here for those busy crews     Green leaves and pale-stemmed clusters of green strong flowers     Build heavy-perfumed, cool, green-twilight bowers     Whence, load by load, through the long summer days         They fill their glassy cells     With dark green honey, clear as chrysoprase,     Which housewives shun; but the bee-master tells     This brand is more delicious than all else.     In August-time, if moors are near at hand,     Be wise and in the evening-twilight load     Your hives upon a cart, and take the road     By night: that, ere the early dawn shall spring     And all the hills turn rosy with the Ling,         Each waking hive may stand     Established in its new-appointed land     Without harm taken, and the earliest flights     Set out at once to loot the heathery heights.     That vintage of the Heather yields so dense     And glutinous a syrup that it foils     Him who would spare the comb and drain from thence         Its dark, full-flavoured spoils:     For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful     Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks     Those many-chambered palaces of wax.     Then let a choice of every kind be made,     And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks--     Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks:     The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade:     Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover:         That delicate honey culled     From Apple-blosson, that of sunlight tastes:     And sunlight-coloured honey of the Clover.         Then, when the late year wastes,     When night falls early and the noon is dulled         And the last warm days are over,     Unlock the store and to your table bring     Essence of every blossom of the spring.     And if, when wind has never ceased to blow     All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed         In level wastes of snow,     Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed     Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced     Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised     All the hot perfume of the heathery slope.     And, tasting and remembering, live in hope.