I

When the season was dry and the sun was hot, And the hornet sucked, gaunt on the apricot, And the ripe peach dropped, to its seed a-rot, With a lean, red wasp that stung and clung: When the hollyhocks, ranked in the garden plot, More seed-pods had than blossoms, I wot, Then all had been said and been sung, And meseemed that my heart had forgot.