266 The Poets and Nature. 



true, but the honey, such as there is, must be very hard 

 to find, and is thin when found. 

 No wonder the poet says 



" Plying his earnest task, 

 The bee in the bells of thyme." 



What a musical line it is ! And whether thyme has bells 

 or not, the bees love the flower, and I remember many a 

 time and oft, when I lived in White of Selborne's country, 

 lying on the bank crushing the wild thyme where it grew, 

 listening all the time I read to the murmur of a multitude 

 of bees, with the air about me aromatic with the Attic 

 herb. 



' ' And from the knotted flowers of thyme 

 When the woodland banks are deck't, 

 See the bee his load collect ; 

 Mark him turn the petals by, 

 Gold-dust gathering on his thigh, 

 As full many a hum he heaves, 

 While he pats th' intruding leaves 

 Lost in many a heedless spring, 

 Then wearing home on weary wing." Clare. 



So too, as often as I think of my Kentish heath, "gleam- 

 ing in purple and gold " the purple of heather and the 

 gold of the whins I remember the flower and the insect 

 together, and that device of chivalry, the bee on the tuft of 

 heather. 



I do not know them, "humming among the cowslips," or 

 " busy in the golden broom ; " though, as Bloomfield and 

 Clare are beautifully observant, I expect the bees know 

 both. But who can have missed 



" In immemorial elms, 

 The murmur of innumerable bees ; " 



or in the garden, when the currant-bushes are in flower, the 

 myriad voices of the early swarms; or the space-pervading 

 drowsiness of the " honey-flies," on the new-blown heath ; or 

 " haunt of birds and bees, the purple moorland ; " or " the 



