Honey Dripping From The Comb

A poem by James Whitcomb Riley

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!