THE PAGEANT OF SVMMER. 51 



II. 



It is the patient humble-bee that goes down into 

 the forest of the mowing-grass. If entangled, the 

 humble-bee climbs up a sorrel stem and takes wing, 

 without any sign of annoyance. His broad back with 

 tawny bar buoyantly glides over the golden butter- 

 cups. He hums to himself as he goes, so happy is he. 

 He knows no skep, no cunning work in glass receives 

 his labour, no artificial saccharine aids him when the 

 beams of the sun are cold, there is no step to his house 

 that he may alight in comfort ; the way is not made 

 clear for him that he may start straight for the flowers, 

 nor are any sown for him. He has no shelter if the 

 storm descends suddenly ; he has no dome of twisted 

 straw well thatched and tiled to retreat to. The 

 butcher-bird, with a beak like a crooked iron nail, 

 drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced with 

 a thorn; but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. 

 The grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he 

 must creep where he may, if possibly he may escape 

 the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But 

 down to the flowering nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, 

 up into the tall elm, winding in and out and round 

 the branched buttercups, along the banks of the brook, 

 far inside the deepest wood, away he wanders and 

 despises nothing. His nest is under the rough grasses 

 and the mosses of the mound, a mere tunnel beneath 

 the fibres and matted surface. The hawthorn over- 

 hangs it, the fern grows by, red mice rustle past. 



It thunders, and the great oak trembles ; the heavy 

 rain drops through the treble roof of oak and hawthorn 



