Burly, dozing humblebee,
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek.
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
The careful insect 'midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.
Bees work for man, and yet they never bruise
Their Master's flower, but leave it having done,
As fair as ever and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay and honey run.
For pitty, Sir, find out that Bee
Which bore my Love away
I'le seek him in your Bonnet brave,
He seek him in your eyes.
"O bees, sweet bees!" I said; "that nearest field
Is shining white with fragrant immortelles.
Fly swiftly there and drain those honey wells."
Listen! O, listen!
Here ever hum the golden bees
Underneath full-blossoined trees,
At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
As busie as a Bee.
The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaeton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the bee itself would have desired such a death.
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
For so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summers velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home.
The solitary Bee
Whose buzzing was the only sound of life,
Flew there on restless wing,
Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.
The little bee returns with evening's gloom,
To join her comrades in the braided hive,
Where, housed beside their mighty honey-comb,
They dream their polity shall long survive.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
The wild Bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering.
BEETLE
O'er folded blooms
On swirls of musk,
The beetle booms adown the glooms
And bumps along the dusk.
And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-winged eagle.
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
BEGGARY
I'd just as soon be a beggar as king,
And the reason I'll tell you for why;
A king cannot swagger, nor drink like a beggar
Nor be half so happy as I.
* * *
Let the back and side go bare.
