| |
| BUZZING, buzzing, buzzing, my golden-belted bees: | |
| My little son was seven years old—the mint-flower touched his knees; | |
| Yellow were his curly locks; | |
| Yellow were his stocking-clocks; | |
| His plaything of a sword had a diamond in its hilt; | 5 |
| Where the garden beds lay sunny, | |
| And the bees were making honey, | |
| “For God and the King—to arms! to arms!” the day long would he lilt. | |
| |
| Smock’d in lace and flowered brocade, my pretty son of seven | |
| Wept sore because the kitten died, and left the charge uneven. | 10 |
| “I head one battalion, mother— | |
| Kitty,” sobbed he, “led the other! | |
| And when we reach’d the bee-hive bench | |
| We used to halt and storm the trench: | |
| If we could plant our standard here, | 15 |
| With all the bees a-buzzing near, | |
| And fly the colors safe from sting, | |
| The town was taken for the king!” | |
| Flitting, flitting over the thyme, my bees with yellow band— | |
| My little son of seven came close, and clipp’d me by the hand; | 20 |
| A wreath of mourning cloth was wound | |
| His small left arm and sword-hilt round, | |
| And on the thatch of every hive a wisp of black was bound. | |
| “Sweet mother, we must tell the bees, or they will swarm away: | |
| Ye little bees!” he called, “draw nigh, and hark to what I say, | 25 |
| And make us golden honey still for our white wheaten bread, | |
| Though never more | |
| We rush on war | |
| With Kitty at our head: | |
| Who ’ll give the toast | 30 |
| When swords are cross’d, | |
| Now Kitty lieth dead?” | |
| |
| Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my bees of yellow girth: | |
| My son of seven changed his mood, and clasp’d me in his mirth. | |
| “Sweet mother, when I grow a man and fall on battle-field,” | 35 |
| He cried, and down in the daisied grass upon one knee he kneel’d, | |
| “I charge thee, come and tell the bees how I for the king lie dead; | |
| And thou shalt never lack fine honey for thy wheaten bread!” | |
| |
| Flitting, flitting, flitting, my busy bees, alas! | |
| No footstep of my soldier son came clinking through the grass. | 40 |
| Thrice he kiss’d me for farewell, | |
| And far on the stone his shadow fell; | |
| He buckled spurs and sword-belt on, as the sun began to stoop, | |
| Set foot in stirrup, and sprang to horse, and rode to join his troop. | |
| To the west he rode, where the winds were at play, | 45 |
| And Monmouth’s army mustering lay; | |
| Where Bridgewater flew her banner high, | |
| And gave up her keys, when the Duke came by; | |
| And the maids of Taunton paid him court | |
| With colors their own white hands had wrought; | 50 |
| And red as a field, where blood doth run, | |
| Sedgemoor blazed in the setting sun. | |
| |
| Broider’d sash and clasp of gold, my soldier son, alas! | |
| The mint was all in flower, and the clover in the grass: | |
| “With every bed | 55 |
| In bloom,” I said, | |
| “What further lack the bees, | |
| That they buzz so loud, | |
| Like a restless cloud, | |
| Among the orchard trees?” | 60 |
| No voice in the air, from Sedgemoor field, | |
| Moan’d out how Grey and the horse had reel’d; | |
| Met me no ghost, with haunting eyes, | |
| That westward pointed ’mid its sighs, | |
| And pull’d apart a bloody vest, | 65 |
| And show’d the sword-gash in its breast. | |
| |
| Empty hives, and flitting bees, and sunny morning hours: | |
| I snipp’d the blossom’d lavender, and the pinks, and the gillyflowers; | |
| No petal trembled in my hold— | |
| I saw not the dead stretched stark and cold | 70 |
| On the trampled turf at the shepherd’s door, | |
| In the cloak and the doublet Monmouth wore, | |
| With Monmouth’s scarf and headgear on, | |
| And the eyes, not clos’d, of my soldier son; | |
| I knew not how, ere the cocks did crow, the fight was fought in the dark, | 75 |
| With naught for guide but the enemy’s guns, when the flint flash’d out a spark, | |
| Till, routed at first sound of fire, the cavalry broke and fled, | |
| And the hoofs struck dumb, where they spurn’d the slain, and the meadow stream ran red; | |
| I saw not the handful of horsemen spur through the dusk, and out of sight, | |
| My soldier son at the Duke’s left hand, and Grey that rode on his right. | 80 |
| |
| 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!) | 85 |
| 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 women’s craft and balsam fine | 90 |
| We bath’d 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 wanton’d o’er the bed. | 95 |
| |
| He told how my son, at the shepherd’s door, kept guard 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, | 100 |
| A price is set on thy traitor head!” | |
| My soldier son, with secret smile, | |
| Held both at bay for a little while, | |
| Dealt them such death-blow as he fell, | |
| Neither was left the tale to tell; | 105 |
| With dying eyes, that asked no grace, | |
| They stared on him for a minute’s space, | |
| And felt that it was not Monmouth’s face. | |
| Crimson’d through was Monmouth’s cloak, when the soldier dropped at their side— | |
| “Those knaves will carry no word,” he said, and he smil’d in his pain, and died. | 110 |
| “Two days,” told the messenger, “did we lie | |
| Hid in the field of peas and rye, | |
| Hid in the ditch of brake and sedge, | |
| With the enemy’s scouts down every hedge, | |
| Till Grey was seized, and Monmouth seized, that under the fern did crouch, | 115 |
| Starved, and haggard, and all unshaved, with a few raw peas in his pouch.” | |
| |
| No music soundeth in my ears, but a passing bell that tolls | |
| For gallant lords with head on block—sweet Heaven receive their souls! | |
| And a mound, unnamed, in Sedgemoor grass, | |
| That laps my soldier son, alas! | 120 |
| The bloom is shed— | |
| The bees are fled— | |
| Myddelton luck it ’s done and dead. | |
| |
