later plebeian congener, the apple, spite all 

 her lavish bewilderment of buds. Both are 

 sickish - sweet of scent a heavy, sullen 

 odor that makes the low wind afaint. Go 

 a little way off, and it is breath of Para- 

 dise. Here, under thick-blossomed boughs, 

 it makes you half gasp for breath. 



Not so the busy bees never so busy as 

 in face of these many flowered small gains. 

 See how sagely they pass the open, rifled 

 flowerets, how eagerly they thrust them be- 

 twixt unfolding petals to reach the un- 

 touched heart. Some fly homeward, all 

 powdered like courtiers of old days. They 

 are heaping up pollen for bee-bread. Shortly 

 there will be new broods vagrant swarms 

 flying out to settle in brown, knotty, crawl- 

 ing clusters on fence or tree. 



But first rough weather shall darken ; keen 

 winds blow out of the sky ; all the orchard 

 blossoms stand naked, shivering, acold. 

 Not -one in the million of this white en- 

 chantment, this rosy cloud, shall come to 

 the fruit. Smitten of frost, sapless, withered, 

 they shall fall unheeded, while green leaves 

 laugh out under bright, wet April skies, and 

 make the mournful boughs again to dance 

 in sunshine. 



Then bees fly high, fly low far and high 



