Honey Dripping from the Comb

James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916)

HOW slight a thing may set one’s fancy drifting

Upon the dead sea of the Past!—A view—

Sometimes an odor—or a rooster lifting

A far-off “Ooh! ooh-ooh!”

And suddenly we find ourselves astray

In some wood’s-pasture of the Long Ago,—

Or idly dream again upon a day

Of rest we used to know.

I bit an apple but a moment since,—

A wilted apple that the worm had spurned,—

Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints

Of good old days returned.

And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,

Tinkles a tune so tender and complete,

God’s blessing must be resting on the fruit—

So bitter, yet so sweet!