Mary Austin
Now the wild bees that hive in the rocks
are winding their horns, elfin shrill,
and hark, at the pine tree the woodpecker knocks,
and the speckled grouse pipes on the hill.
Now the addler's dull brood wake to run,
Now the sap mount abundant and good.
And the brown bear has turned with his side to the sun
In his lair in the depth of the wood,
Old Honey Paw wakes in the wood.
Oh a little more slumber says he
And a little more turning to sleep
But he feels the spring fervor that hurries the bee
And the hunger that makes the trout leap
So he amble by thicket and trail
So he noses the tender young shoots,
In the spring of the year at the sign of the quail
For sappy and succulent roots
Oh as still goes the wolf on his quest
As the spotted snake glides through the rocks
And the deer and the sheep count the lightest foot best
and slinking and sly trots the fox
But fleet-foot and light-foot will stay
and fawns by their mothers will quail
at the saplings that snap and the thickets that sway
When Hone-Paw takes to the trail
When hw shuffles and grunts on the trail
He has gathered the ground squirrel's hoard
He has rifles the store of the bees,
He has caught the young trout at the shoals of the ford
And stripped the wild plums from the trees
So robbing the raging he goes
And the right to his pillage makes good
Til rou round out the year at the first of the snows
In his lair in the depths of the wood
Old Honey-Paw sleeps in the wood.
