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Honey Harvest

by Martin Armstrong

Late in March, when the days are growing longer

And sight of early green

Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger,

Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen

The year's first honey-bees

Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know

This for the first sign of the honey-flow.

Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees

Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams

Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams

The honey. Now, if chilly April days

Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's

First week come in with sudden summer weather,

The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together,

And all day long the plundering hordes go round

And every overweighted blossom nods.

But from that gathered essence they compound

Honey more sweet than nectar of the gods.

Those blossoms fall ere June, warm June that brings

The small white Clover. Field by scented field,

Round farms like islands in the rolling weald,

It spreads thick-flowering or in wildness springs

Short-stemmed upon the naked downs, to yield

A richer store of honey than the Rose,

The Pink, the Honeysuckle. Thence there flows

Nectar of clearest amber, redolent

Of every flowery scent

That the warm wind upgathers as he goes.

In mid-July be ready for the noise

Of million bees in old Lime-avenues,

As though hot noon had found a droning voice

To ease her soul. Here for those busy crews

Green leaves and pale-stemmed clusters of green strong flowers

Build heavy-perfumed, cool, green-twilight bowers

Whence, load by load, through the long summer days

They fill their glassy cells

With dark green honey, clear as chrysoprase,

Which housewives shun; but the bee-master tells

This brand is more delicious than all else.

In August-time, if moors are near at hand,

Be wise and in the evening-twilight load

Your hives upon a cart, and take the road

By night: that, ere the early dawn shall spring

And all the hills turn rosy with the Ling,

Each waking hive may stand

Established in its new-appointed land

Without harm taken, and the earliest flights

Set out at once to loot the heathery heights.

That vintage of the Heather yields so dense

And glutinous a syrup that it foils

Him who would spare the comb and drain from thence

Its dark, full-flavoured spoils:

For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful

Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks

Those many-chambered palaces of wax.

Then let a choice of every kind be made,

And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks--

Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks:

The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade:

Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover:

That delicate honey culled

From Apple-blosson, that of sunlight tastes:

And sunlight-coloured honey of the Clover.

Then, when the late year wastes,

When night falls early and the noon is dulled

And the last warm days are over,

Unlock the store and to your table bring

Essence of every blossom of the spring.

And if, when wind has never ceased to blow

All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed

In level wastes of snow,

Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed

Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced

Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised

All the hot perfume of the heathery slope.

And, tasting and remembering, live in hope.