Poems (Forrest)/The shadow of a bee
THE SHADOW OF A BEE
You pride yourself (the way some churchmen do,
Following the Book) your duty here is done,
Leaving me prone, a crushed and crumpled heap
Of penitence! A wilful, foolish child,
Feeling the rod that heals her of her shame
That she may live to holiness and turn
The wild life-forces into sacred use.
Following the Book) your duty here is done,
Leaving me prone, a crushed and crumpled heap
Of penitence! A wilful, foolish child,
Feeling the rod that heals her of her shame
That she may live to holiness and turn
The wild life-forces into sacred use.
I saw upon the cold grey chapel-wall
The shadow of a bee. A wedge of sun
Drave through the splendours of the yellow glass
Leaded about (as custom keeps in fire);
The shadow of the bee was twice as large
As was the bee that darted to the floor,
Dreaming a syrup in a waxen drop
The candles spilled. That bee was brown and gold,
And smelled, I knew, of heather-tops and grass,
And slow, sweet primrose honeys of the hive.
Its hairy legs at noon were gripped by flowers
In near embrace, and still it ached of them.
The shadow of a bee. A wedge of sun
Drave through the splendours of the yellow glass
Leaded about (as custom keeps in fire);
The shadow of the bee was twice as large
As was the bee that darted to the floor,
Dreaming a syrup in a waxen drop
The candles spilled. That bee was brown and gold,
And smelled, I knew, of heather-tops and grass,
And slow, sweet primrose honeys of the hive.
Its hairy legs at noon were gripped by flowers
In near embrace, and still it ached of them.
You thought you left me weeping on the stone—
My beads laced in my fingers—to repent;
A broken, slender, white and woman thing
Made for a toy, and never for a coif,
Made more for man than God, if God be such
As you have shown Him, stern, aloof, and blind
To sudden dimples in a bud-pale cheek
And tiny rose-leaf buttons hidden by
The folded 'kerchief of a satin breast.
Belike my heaving shoulders aped a storm
Of self-accusing, waking modesty;
But underneath my down-dropt lids I saw
A tasselled moor the summer whips to bloom;
And lovers, to each others' bodies held,
Breathing hot gorse and drunken with the sun!
My beads laced in my fingers—to repent;
A broken, slender, white and woman thing
Made for a toy, and never for a coif,
Made more for man than God, if God be such
As you have shown Him, stern, aloof, and blind
To sudden dimples in a bud-pale cheek
And tiny rose-leaf buttons hidden by
The folded 'kerchief of a satin breast.
Belike my heaving shoulders aped a storm
Of self-accusing, waking modesty;
But underneath my down-dropt lids I saw
A tasselled moor the summer whips to bloom;
And lovers, to each others' bodies held,
Breathing hot gorse and drunken with the sun!