When April clouds their vernal drops had shed,
And bonny May had made all nature glad;—
When that arch monarch had assail’d the moon,
And bade her quarter in the month of June;—
Then in the garden, rearward of the cot,—
(A little oblong well-trimm’d fruitful spot,
Encompass’d round with hedge-row elder trees,)
Thenceforth would come the meek harmonious bees;
There trip from plant to plant, from flow’r to flow’r,
A-gathering in their luscious golden store.