Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By Song of the BeeOliver C. Wyman
A
That droops and pines for its truant bee;
With beauty renew’d like the morning hour
’T will wait for my coming with anxious glee.
Ah little, but little, the rose-spirit dreams
Of the last dear place of her wanderer’s rest—
Like the evening dew, in the mountain streams,
She would waste should I tell of the tulip’s breast.
Away, away, for the earliest kiss
Must be mine from the freshest and sweetest rose;
Oh! there ’s nought upon earth like the young bee’s bliss,
When the morning rose-leaves over him close.
Hid from the beam of his rival—Sun,
Couch’d in the bosom of beauty’s flower,
He rests, till its choicest treasures are won,
From the scorching ray or the drenching shower.