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Title: Black Bill's Honey-Moon
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
The garlands of a Whitsun ale were strewn
About our rushes, the night that Raleigh brought
Bacon to sup with us. There, on that night,
I saw the singer of the _Faerie Queen_
Quietly spreading out his latest cantos
For Shakespeare's eye, like white sheets in the sun.
Marlowe, our morning-star, and Michael Drayton
Talked in that ingle-nook. And Ben was there,
Humming a song upon that old black settle:
"Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not ask for wine."
But, meanwhile, he drank malmsey.
Francis Bacon
Straddled before the fire; and, all at once,
He said to Shakespeare, in a voice that gripped
The Mermaid Tavern like an arctic frost:
"_There are no poets in this age of ours,
Not to compare with Plautus. They are all
Dead, the men that were famous in old days._"
"Why--so they are," said Will. The humming stopped.
I saw poor Spenser, a shy gentle soul,
With haunted eyes like starlit forest pools,
Smuggling his cantos under his cloak again.
"There's verse enough, no doubt," Bacon went on,
"But English is no language for the Muse.
Whom would you call our best? There's Gabriel Harvey,
And Edward, Earl of Oxford. Then there's Dyer,
And Doctor Golding; while, for tragedy,
Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, hath a lofty vein.
And, in a lighter prettier vein, why, Will,
There is _thyself!_ But--where's Euripides?"
"Dead," echoed Ben, in a deep ghost-like voice.
And drip--drip--drip--outside we heard the rain
Miserably dropping round the Mermaid Inn.
"Thy Summer's Night--eh, Will? Midsummer's Night?--
That's a quaint fancy," Bacon droned anew,
"But--Athens was an error, Will! Not Athens!
Titania knew not Athens! Those wild elves
Of thy Midsummer's Dream--eh? Midnight's Dream?--
Are English all. Thy woods, too, smack of England;
They never grew round Athens. Bottom, too,
He is not Greek!"
"Greek?" Will said, with a chuckle,
"Bottom a Greek? Why, no, he was the son
Of Marian Hacket, the fat wife that kept
An ale-house, Wincot-way. I lodged with her
Walking from Stratford. You have never tramped
Along that countryside? By Burton Heath?
Ah, well, you would not know my fairylands.
It warms my blood to let my home-spuns play
Around your cold white Athens. There's a joy
In jumping time and space."
But, as he took
The cup of sack I proffered, solemnly
The lawyer shook his head. "Will, couldst thou use
Thy talents with discretion, and obey
Classic examples, those mightst match old Plautus,
In all except priority of the tongue.
This English tongue is only for an age,
But Latin for all time. So I propose
To embalm in Latin my philosophies.
Well seize your hour! But, ere you die, you'll sail
A British galleon to the golden courts
Of Cleopatra."
"Sail it!" Marlowe roared,
Mimicking in a fit of thunderous glee
The drums and trumpets of his Tamburlaine:
"And let her buccaneers bestride the sphinx,
And play at bowls with Pharaoh's pyramids,
And hale white Egypt with their tarry hands
Home to the Mermaid! Lift the good old song
That Rob Greene loved. Gods, how the lad would shout it!
Stand up and sing, John Davis!"
"Up!" called Raleigh,
"Lift the chanty of Black Bill's Honey-moon, Jack!
We'll keep the chorus going!"
"Silence, all!"
Ben Jonson echoed, rolling on his bench:
"This gentle lawyer hath a longing, lads,
To hear a right Homeric hymn. Now, Jack!
But wet your whistle, first! A cup of sack
For the first canto! Muscadel, the next!
Canary for the last!" I brought the cup.
John Davis emptied it at one mighty draught,
Leapt on a table, stamped with either foot,
And straight began to troll this mad sea-tale:
CANTO THE FIRST
Let Martin Parker at hawthorn-tide
Prattle in Devonshire lanes,
Let all his pedlar poets beside
Rattle their gallows-chains,
A tale like mine they never shall tell
Or a merrier ballad sing,
Till the Man in the Moon pipe up the tune
And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!
Chorus: Till Philip of Spain in England reign,
And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!
All in the gorgeous dawn of day
From grey old Plymouth Sound
Our galleon crashed thro' the crimson spray
To sail the world around:
_Cloud i' the Sun_ was her white-scrolled name,--
There was never a lovelier lass
For sailing in state after pieces of eight
With her bombards all of brass.
Chorus: Culverins, robinets, iron may-be;
But her bombards all of brass!
Now, they that go down to the sea in ships,
Though piracy be their trade,
For all that they pray not much with their lips
They know where the storms are made:
With the stars above and the sharks below,
They need not parson or clerk;
But our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still,
Except--sometimes--in the dark!
Chorus: Now let Kit Marlowe mark!
Our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still,
Except--sometimes--in the dark!
All we adventured for, who shall say,
Nor yet what our port might be?--
A magical city of old Cathay,
Or a castle of Muscovy,
With our atheist bo'sun, Bill, Black Bill,
Under the swinging Bear,
Whistling at night for a seaman to light
His little poop-lanthorns there.
Chorus: On the deep, in the night, for a seaman to light
His little lost lanthorns there.
But, as over the Ocean-sea we swept,
We chanced on a strange new land
Where a valley of tall white lilies slept
With a forest on either hand;
A valley of white in a purple wood
And, behind it, faint and far,
Breathless and bright o'er the last rich height,
Floated the sunset-star.
Chorus: Fair and bright o'er the rose-red height,
Venus, the sunset-star.
'Twas a marvel to see, as we beached our boat,
Black Bill, in that peach-bloom air,
With the great white lilies that reached to his throat
Like a stained-glass bo'sun there,
And our little ship's chaplain, puffing and red,
A-starn as we onward stole,
With the disk of a lily behind his head
Like a cherubin's aureole.
Chorus: He was round and red and behind his head
He'd a cherubin's aureole.
"Hyrcania, land of honey and bees,
We have found thee at last," he said,
"Where the honey-comb swells in the hollow trees,"
(O, the lily behind his head!)
"The honey-comb swells in the purple wood!
'Tis the swette which the heavens distil,
Saith Pliny himself, on my little book-shelf!
Is the world not sweet to thee, Bill?"
Chorus: "Saith Pliny himself, on my little book-shelf!
Is the world not sweet to thee, Bill?"
Now a man may taste of the devil's hot spice,
And yet if his mind run back
To the honey of childhood's Paradise
His heart is not wholly black;
And Bill, Black Bill, from the days of his youth,
Tho' his chest was broad as an oak,
Had cherished one innocent little sweet tooth,
And it itched as our chaplain spoke.
Chorus: He had kept one perilous little tooth,
And it itched as our chaplain spoke.
All around was a mutter of bees,
And Bill 'gan muttering too,--
"If the honey-comb swells in the hollow trees,
(What else can a Didymus do?)
I'll steer to the purple woods myself
And see if this thing be so,
Which the chaplain found on his little book-shelf,
For Pliny lived long ago."
Chorus: There's a platter of delf on his little book-shelf,
And Pliny lived long ago.
Scarce had he spoken when, out of the wood,
And buffeting all around,
Rooting our sea-boots where we stood,
There rumbled a marvellous sound,
As a mountain of honey were crumbling asunder,
Or a sunset-avalanche hurled
Honey-comb boulders of golden thunder
To smother the old black world.
Chorus: Honey-comb boulders of musical thunder
To mellow this old black world.
And the chaplain he whispered--"This honey, one saith,
On my camphired cabin-shelf,
None may harvest on pain of death;
For the bee would eat it himself!
None walketh those woods but him whose voice
In the dingles you then did hear!"
"A VOICE?" growls Bill. "Ay, Bill, r-r-rejoice!
'Twas the great Hyrcanian Bear!"
Chorus: Give thanks! _Re_-joice! 'Twas the glor-r-r-ious Voice
Of the great Hyrcanian Bear!
But, marking that Bill looked bitter indeed,
For his sweet tooth hungered sore,
"Consider," he saith, "that the Sweet hath need
Of the Sour, as the Sea of the Shore!
As the night to the day is our grief to our joy,
And each for its brother prepares
A banquet, Bill, that would otherwise cloy.
Thus is it with honey and bears."
Chorus: Roses and honey and laughter would cloy!
Give us thorns, too, and sorrow and bears!
"Consider," he saith, "how by fretting a string
The lutanist maketh sweet moan,
And a bird ere it fly must have air for its wing
To buffet or fall like a stone:
Tho' you blacken like Pluto you make but more white
These blooms which not Enna could yield!
Consider, Black Bill, ere the coming of night,
The lilies," he saith, "of the field."
Chorus: "Consider, Black Bill, in this beautiful light,
The lilies," he saith, "of the field."
"Consider the claws of a Bear," said Bill,
"That can rip off the flesh from your bones,
While his belly could cabin the skipper and still
Accommodate Timothy Jones!
Why, that's where a seaman who cares for his grog
Perspires how this world isn't square!
If there's _cause_ for a _cow_, if there's _use_ for a _dog_,
By Pope John, there's no _Sense_ in a _Bear!_"
Chorus: Cause for a cow, use for a dog,
By'r Lakin, no _Sense_ in a _Bear!_
But our little ship's chaplain--"Sense," quoth he,
"Hath the Bear tho' his making have none;
For, my little book saith, by the sting of this bee
Would Ursus be wholly foredone,
But, or ever the hive he adventureth nigh
And its crisp gold-crusted dome,
He lardeth his nose and he greaseth his eye
With a piece of an honey-comb."
Chorus: His velvety nose and his sensitive eye
With a piece of an honey-comb.
Black Bill at the word of that golden crust
--For his ears had forgotten the roar,
And his eyes grew soft with their innocent lust--
'Gan licking his lips once more:
"Be it bound like a missal and printed as fair,
With capitals blue and red,
'Tis a lie; for what honey could comfort a bear,
Till the bear win the honey?" he said.
Chorus: "Ay, _whence_ the first honey wherewith the first bear
First larded his nose?" he said.
"Thou first metaphysical bo'sun, Bill,"
Our chaplain quizzingly cried,
"Wilt thou riddle me redes of a dumpling still
With thy 'how came the apple inside'?"
"Nay," answered Bill, "but I quest for truth,
And I find it not on your shelf!
I will face your Hyrcanian bear, forsooth,
And look at his nose myself."
Chorus: For truth, for truth, or a little sweet tooth--
I will into the woods myself.
Breast-high thro' that foam-white ocean of bloom
With its wonderful spokes of gold,
Our sun-burnt crew in the rose-red gloom
Like buccaneer galleons rolled:
Breast-high, breast-high in the lilies we stood,
And before we could say "good-night,"
Out of the valley and into the wood
He plunged thro' the last rich light.
Chorus: Out of the lilies and into the wood,
Where the Great Bear walks all night!
And our little ship's chaplain he piped thro' the trees
As the moon rose, white and still,
"Hylas, return to thy Heracles!"
And we helped him with "Come back, Bill!"
Thrice he piped it, thrice we halloo'd,
And thrice we were dumb to hark;
But never an answer came from the wood,
So--we turned to our ship in the dark.
Chorus: Good-bye, Bill! you're a Didymus still;
But--you're all alone in the dark.
"This honey now"--as the first canto ceased,
The great young Bacon pompously began--
"Which Pliny calleth, as it were, the swette
Of heaven, or spettle of the stars, is found
In Muscovy. Now ..." "Bring the muscadel,"
Ben Jonson roared--"'Tis a more purple drink,
And suits with the next canto!"
At one draught
John Davis drained the cup, and with one hand
Beating the measure, rapidly trolled again.
CANTO THE SECOND
Now, Rabelais, art thou quite foredone,
Dan Chaucer, Drayton, Every One!
Leave we aboard our _Cloud i' the Sun_
This crew of pirates dreaming--
Of Angels, minted in the blue
Like golden moons, Rose-nobles, too,
As under the silver-sliding dew
Our emerald creek lay gleaming!
Chorus: Under the stars lay gleaming!
And mailed with scales of gold and green
The high star-lilied banks between,
Nosing our old black hulk unseen,
Great alligators shimmered:
Blood-red jaws i' the blue-black ooze,
Where all the long warm day they snooze,
Chewing old cuds of pirate-crews,
Around us grimly glimmered.
Chorus: Their eyes like rubies glimmered.
Let us now sing of Bill, good sirs!
Follow him, all green foresteres,
Fearless of Hyrcanian bears
As of these ghostly lilies!
For O, not Drayton there could sing
Of wild Pigwiggen and his King
So merry a jest, so jolly a thing
As this my tale of Bill is.
Chorus: Into the woods where Bill is!
Now starts he as a white owl hoots,
And now he stumbles over roots,
And now beneath his big sea-boots
In yon deep glade he crunches
Black cakes of honey-comb that were
So elfin-sweet, perchance, last year;
But neither Bo'sun, now, nor Bear
At that dark banquet munches.
Chorus: Onward still he crunches!
Black cakes of honey-comb he sees
Above him in the forks of trees,
Filled by stars instead of bees,
With brimming silver glisten:
But ah, such food of gnome and fay
Could neither Bear nor Bill delay
Till where yon ferns and moonbeams play
He starts and stands to listen!
Chorus: What melody doth he listen?
Is it the Night-Wind as it comes
Through the wood and softly thrums
Silvery tabors, purple drums,
To speed some wild-wood revel?
Nay, Didymus, what faint sweet din
Of viol and flute and violin
Makes all the forest round thee spin,
The Night-Wind or the Devil?
Chorus: No doubt at all--the Devil!
He stares, with naked knife in hand,
This buccaneer in fairyland!
Dancing in a saraband
The red ferns reel about him!
Dancing in a morrice-ring
The green ferns curtsey, kiss and cling!
Their Marians flirt, their Robins fling
Their feathery heels to flout him!
Chorus: The whole wood reels about him.
Dance, ye shadows! O'er the glade,
Bill, the Bo'sun, undismayed,
Pigeon-toes with glittering blade!
Drake was never bolder!
Devil or Spaniard, what cares he
Whence your eerie music be?
Till--lo, against yon old oak-tree
He leans his brawny shoulder!
Chorus: He lists and leans his shoulder!
Ah, what melody doth he hear
As to that gnarled old tree-trunk there
He lays his wind-bit brass-ringed ear,
And steals his arm about it?
What Dryad could this Bo'sun win
To that slow-rippling amorous grin?--
'Twas full of singing bees within!
Not Didymus could doubt it!
Chorus: So loud they buzzed about it!
Straight, o'er a bough one leg he throws,
And up that oaken main-mast goes
With reckless red unlarded nose
And gooseberry eyes of wonder!
Till now, as in a galleon's hold,
Below, he sees great cells of gold
Whence all the hollow trunk up-rolled
A low melodious thunder.
Chorus: A sweet and perilous thunder!
Ay, there, within that hollow tree,
Will Shakespeare, mightst thou truly see
The Imperial City of the Bee,
In Chrysomelan splendour!
And, in the midst, one eight-foot dome
Swells o'er that Titan honey-comb
Where the Bee-Empress hath her home,
With such as do attend her,
Chorus: Weaponed with stings attend her!
But now her singing sentinels
Have turned to sleep in waxen cells,
And Bill leans down his face and smells
The whole sweet summer's cargo--
In one deep breath, the whole year's bloom,
Lily and thyme and rose and broom,
One Golden Fleece of flower-perfume
In that old oaken Argo.
Chorus: That green and golden Argo!
And now he hangs with dangling feet
Over that dark abyss of sweet,
Striving to reach such wild gold meat
As none could buy for money:
His left hand grips a swinging branch
When--crack! Our Bo'sun, stout and stanch,
Falls like an Alpine avalanche,
Feet first into the honey!
Chorus: Up to his ears in honey!
And now his red unlarded nose
And bulging eyes are all that shows
Above it, as he puffs and blows!
And now--to 'scape the scathing
Of that black host of furious bees
His nose and eyes he fain would grease
And bobs below those golden seas
Like an old woman bathing.
Chorus: Old Mother Hubbard bathing!
And now he struggles, all in vain,
To reach some little bough again;
But, though he heaves with might and main,
This honey holds his ribs, sirs,
So tight, a barque might sooner try
To steer a cargo through the sky
Than Bill, thus honey-logged, to fly
By flopping of his jib, sirs!
Chorus: His tops'l and his jib, sirs!
Like Oberon in the hive his beard
With wax and honey all besmeared
Would make the crescent moon afeard
That now is sailing brightly
Right o'er his leafy donjon-keep!
But that she knows him sunken deep,
And that his tower is straight and steep,
She would not smile so lightly.
Chorus: Look down and smile so lightly.
She smiles in that small heavenly space,
Ringed with the tree-trunk's leafy grace,
While upward grins his ghastly face
As if some wild-wood Satyr,
Some gnomish Ptolemy should dare
Up that dark optic tube to stare,
As all unveiled she floated there,
Poor maiden moon, straight at her!
Chorus: The buccaneering Satyr!
But there, till some one help him out,
Black Bill must stay, without a doubt.
"_Help! Help!_" he gives a muffled shout.
None but the white owls hear it!
_Who? Whoo?_ they cry: Bill answers "ME!
_I am stuck fast in this great tree!
Bring me a rope, good Timothy!
There's honey, lads, we'll share it!_"
Chorus: Ay, now he wants to share it.
Then, thinking help may come with morn,
He sinks, half-famished and out-worn,
And scarce his nose exalts its horn
Above that sea of glory!
But, even as he owns defeat,
His belly saith, "A man must eat,
And since there is none other meat,
Come, lap this mess before 'ee!"
Chorus: This glorious mess before 'ee.
Then Dian sees a right strange sight
As, bidding him a fond good-night,
She flings a silvery kiss to light
In that deep oak-tree hollow,
And finds that gold and crimson nose
A moving, munching, ravenous rose
That up and down unceasing goes,
Save when he stops to swallow!
Chorus: He finds it hard to swallow!
Ay, now his best becomes his worst,
For honey cannot quench his thirst,
Though he should eat until he burst;
But, ah, the skies are kindly,
And from their tender depths of blue
They send their silver-sliding dew.
So Bill thrusts out his tongue anew
And waits to catch it--blindly!
Chorus: For ah, the stars are kindly!
And sometimes, with a shower of rain,
They strive to ease their prisoner's pain:
Then Bill thrusts out his tongue again
With never a grace, the sinner!
And day and night and day goes by,
And never a comrade comes anigh,
And still the honey swells as high
For supper, breakfast, dinner!
Chorus: Yet Bill has grown no thinner!
The young moon grows to full and throws
Her buxom kiss upon his nose,
As nightly over the tree she goes,
And peeps and smiles and passes,
Then with her fickle silver flecks
Our old black galleon's dreaming decks;
And then her face, with nods and becks,
In midmost ocean glasses.
Chorus: 'Twas ever the way with lasses!
Ah, Didymus, hast thou won indeed
That Paradise which is thy meed?
(Thy tale not all that run may read!)
Thy sweet hath now no leaven!
Now, like an onion in a cup
Of mead, thou liest for Jove to sup,
Could Polyphemus lift thee up
With Titan hands to heaven!
Chorus: This great oak-cup to heaven!
The second canto ceased; and, as they raised
Their wine-cups with the last triumphant note,
Bacon, undaunted, raised his grating voice--
"This honey which, in some sort, may be styled
The Spettle of the Stars ..." "Bring the Canary!"
Ben Jonson roared. "It is a moral wine
And suits the third, last canto!" At one draught
John Davis drained it and began anew.
CANTO THE THIRD
A month went by. We were hoisting sail!
We had lost all hope of Bill;
Though, laugh as you may at a seaman's tale,
He was fast in his honey-comb still!
And often he thinks of the chaplain's word
In the days he shall see no more,--
How the Sweet, indeed, of the Sour hath need;
And the Sea, likewise, of the Shore.
Chorus: The chaplain's word of the Air and a Bird;
Of the Sea, likewise, and the Shore!
"O, had I the wings of a dove, I would fly
To a heaven, of aloes and gall!
I have honeyed," he yammers, "my nose and mine eye,
And the bees cannot sting me at all!
And it's O, for the sting of a little brown bee,
Or to blister my hands on a rope,
Or to buffet a thundering broad-side sea
On a deck like a mountain-slope!"
Chorus: With her mast snapt short, and a list to port
And a deck like a mountain-slope.
But alas, and he thinks of the chaplain's voice
When that roar from the woods out-break--
_R-r-re-joice! R-r-re-joice!_ "Now, wherefore rejoice
In the music a bear could make?
'Tis a judgment, maybe, that I stick in this tree;
Yet in this I out-argued him fair!
Though I live, though I die, in this honey-comb pie,
By Pope Joan, there's no sense in a bear!"
Chorus: Notes in a nightingale, plums in a pie,
By'r Lakin, no _Sense_ in a _Bear_!
He knew not our anchor was heaved from the mud:
He was growling it over again,
When--a strange sound suddenly froze his blood,
And curdled his big slow brain!--
A marvellous sound, as of great steel claws
Gripping the bark of his tree,
Softly ascended! Like lightning ended
His honey-comb reverie!
Chorus: The honey-comb quivered! The little leaves shivered!
_Something was climbing the tree!_
Something that breathed like a fat sea-cook,
Or a pirate of fourteen ton!
But it clomb like a cat (tho' the whole tree shook)
Stealthily tow'rds the sun,
Till, as Black Bill gapes at the little blue ring
Overhead, which he calls the sky,
It is clean blotted out by a monstrous Thing
Which--_hath larded its nose and its eye._
Chorus: O, well for thee, Bill, that this monstrous Thing
Hath blinkered its little red eye.
Still as a mouse lies Bill with his face
Low down in the dark sweet gold,
While this monster turns round in the leaf-fringed space!
Then--taking a good firm hold,
As the skipper descending the cabin-stair,
Tail-first with a vast slow tread,
Solemnly, softly, cometh this Bear
Straight down o'er the Bo'sun's head.
Chorus: Solemnly--slowly--cometh this Bear,
Tail-first o'er the Bo'sun's head.
Nearer--nearer--then all Bill's breath
Out-bursts in one leap and yell!
And this Bear thinks, "Now am I gripped from beneath
By a roaring devil from hell!"
And madly Bill clutches his brown bow-legs,
And madly this Bear doth hale,
With his little red eyes fear-mad for the skies
And Bill's teeth fast in his tail!
Chorus: Small wonder a Bear should quail!
To have larded his nose, to have greased his eyes,
And be stung at the last in his tail.
Pull, Bo'sun! Pull, Bear! In the hot sweet gloom,
Pull Bruin, pull Bill, for the skies!
Pull--out of their gold with a bombard's boom
Come Black Bill's honeyed thighs!
Pull! Up! Up! Up! with a scuffle and scramble,
To that little blue ring of bliss,
This Bear doth go with our Bo'sun in tow
Stinging his tail, I wis.
Chorus: And this Bear thinks--"Many great bees I know,
But there never was Bee like this!"
All in the gorgeous death of day
We had slipped from our emerald creek,
And our _Cloud i' the Sun_ was careening away
With the old gay flag at the peak,
When, suddenly, out of the purple wood,
Breast-high thro' the lilies there danced
A tall lean figure, black as a nigger,
That shouted and waved and pranced!
Chorus: A gold-greased figure, but black as a nigger,
Waving his shirt as he pranced!
"'Tis Hylas! 'Tis Hylas!" our chaplain flutes,
And our skipper he looses a shout!
"'Tis Bill! Black Bill, in his old sea-boots!
_Stand by to bring her about!
Har-r-rd a-starboard!"_ And round we came,
With a lurch and a dip and a roll,
And a banging boom thro' the rose-red gloom
For our old Black Bo'sun's soul!
Chorus: Alive! Not dead! Tho' behind his head
He'd a seraphin's aureole!
And our chaplain he sniffs, as Bill finished his tale,
(With the honey still scenting his hair!)
O'er a plate of salt beef and a mug of old ale--
"By Pope Joan, there's no sense in a bear!"
And we laughed, but our Bo'sun he solemnly growls
--"Till the sails of yon heavens be furled,
It taketh--now, mark!--all the beasts in the Ark,
Teeth and claws, too, to make a good world!"
Chorus: Till the great--blue--sails--be--furled,
It taketh--now, mark!--all the beasts in the Ark,
Teeth and claws, too, to make a good world!
"Sack! Sack! Canary! Malmsey! Muscadel!"--
As the last canto ceased, the Mermaid Inn
Chorussed. I flew from laughing voice to voice;
But, over all the hubbub, rose the drone
Of Francis Bacon,--"Now, this Muscovy
Is a cold clime, not favourable to bees
(Or love, which is a weakness of the south)
As well might be supposed. Yet, as hot lands
Gender hot fruits and odoriferous spice,
In this case we may think that honey and flowers
Are comparable with the light airs of May
And a more temperate region. Also we see,
As Pliny saith, this honey being a swette
Of heaven, a certain spettle of the stars,
Which, gathering unclean vapours as it falls,
Hangs as a fat dew on the boughs, the bees
Obtain it partly thus, and afterwards
Corrupt it in their stomachs, and at last
Expel it through their mouths and harvest it
In hives; yet, of its heavenly source it keeps
A great part. Thus, by various principles
Of natural philosophy we observe--"
And, as he leaned to Drayton, droning thus,
I saw a light gleam of celestial mirth
Flit o'er the face of Shakespeare--scarce a smile--
A swift irradiation from within
As of a cloud that softly veils the sun.
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Black Bill's Honey-Moon
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