On the Hill-side

By Radcliffe Hall:

A Memory

You lay so still in the sunshine,
So still in that hot sweet hour—
That the timid things of the forest land
Came close; a butterfly lit on your hand,
Mistaking it for a flower.

You scarcely breathed in your slumber,
So dreamless it was, so deep—
While the warm air stirred in my veins like wine,
The air that had blown through a jasmine vine,
But you slept—and I let you sleep.

It quite possibly was a gate-keeper butterfly that landed on the hand of the poet’s companion, a creature of the forest edge, as the name suggests. A sung version of this played on the radio this morning: ‘You lay so still in the sunshine’ by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

orange tips

Two orange-tipped insects this week: a male orange tipped butterfly fluttered by the garden as Mrs T was taking tea, and a queen red-tailed bumble bee who was preening in the sunshine when this picture was taken. Thanks to Anneliese Emmans Dean of theBigBuzz blog on wordpress for the idenification!

Fifty years ago I used to see both of these often in Hampshire, but I don’t remember the last time I saw one of these bees in Kent or anywhere else. I need to keep my eyes open!