Deborah : " The Honey-Beer 265 



folk are abroad, and the voices of them busy at their work 

 fill the streamside with a sweet premonition of summer's 

 June, and the dreamy murmurings of bee-beleaguered 

 hives. 



" This renovating season, too, calls forth 

 The humming tribes; for now the million leaves 

 And downy flowers, or river-loving palms, 

 Afford material for the curious cell ; 

 And oft, e'en in this chill ambiguous month, 

 The labourer returns with loaded thighs." Grahame. 



And so all summer and autumn through, with lavish choice 

 of flowers, to spare November, when the ivy " my yellow 

 bees in the ivy-bloom" tempts here and there the last 

 labourers of the hive. 



The foxglove is a favourite bee haunt. 



"The bee's low tune in the foxglove's bell." 



' ' Where the bee's deep music swells 

 From the trembling foxglove bells." 



And no one who has passed along the copse-side, or sat 

 on the bank among the foxgloves, can have missed that 

 deep hum of a full content as the. bumble-bee scrambled 

 from flower to flower, leaving them all " wagging their sweet 

 heads," as it suddenly made up its mind for home, and 

 flew off on heavy wings, drawing out behind it as it went 

 a tapering note. 



11 To keep her slender fingers from the Sun 

 Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath run, 

 To pluck the speckled foxgloves from their stem, 

 And on her fingers neatly placed them." 



It is a delightful flower, the pet of legend, and a grace to 

 every spot. 



" Upon the thistle-tops and heather bells." 



I have myself seen bumble-bees in their velvet jerkins 

 belted with yellow, probing the thistle heads ; but I often 

 wondered why. There is a scent about the flowers, it is 



