Bee Poems

Table of Contents

The Tax-Gatherer by John B. Tabb
The pedigree of honey by Emily Dickinson
The Bee and the Blossoms by John B. Tabb
Song of the Bees by Hannah Flagg Gould
How Doth the Little Busy Bee by Isaac Watts
The Butterfly and the Bee by William Lisle Bowles
The Song of the Bee by Marian Douglas
Apotheosis by Emily Dickinson
Could I but ride indefinite, by Emily Dickinson
Possession by Emily Dickinson
The Bee by Emily Dickinson
The nearest dream recedes, unrealized by Emily Dickinson
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, — by Emily Dickinson
To The Bee Balm by John Burroughs
The Honey-Bee by John B. Tabb
Wild Bees by John Clare
The Bee, Clover, and Thistle by Hannah Flagg Gould
The Bee and the Child by Hannah Flagg Gould
On a Honey Bee by Philip Freneau
The Decision by Kate Slaughter McKinney
I taste a liquor never brewed by Emily Dickinson
The Bees by Thomas Hastings
The Drop of Honey by Albert Moore Longley
Wild Honey by Raymond Holden
Honey by Hilda Conkling
A More Ancient Mariner by Bliss Carman

The Tax-Gatherer

by John B. Tabb

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"And pray, who are you?"
Said the violet blue
To the Bee, with surprise
At his wonderful size,
In her eye-glass of dew.

"I, madam," quoth he,
"Am a publican Bee,
Collecting the tax
On honey and wax.
Have you nothing for me?"
The pedigree of honey

by Emily Dickinson

The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
The Bee and the Blossoms

by John B. Tabb

"Why stand ye idle, blossoms bright,
The livelong summer day?"
"Alas! we labour all the night
For what thou takest away."
Song of the Bees

by Hannah Flagg Gould

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We watch for the light of the morn to break
And color the eastern sky
With its blended hues of saffron and lake,
Then say to each other, "Awake! awake!
For our winter's honey is all to make,
And our bread for a long supply!"

Then, off we hie to the hill and the dell,
To the field, the meadow and bower.
In the columbine's horn we love to dwell,
To dip in the lily with snow-white bell,
To search the balm in its odorous cell,
The mint and the rosemary-flower.

We seek the bloom of the eglantine,
Of the painted thistle and brier;
And follow the steps of the wandering vine,
Whether it trail on the earth, supine,
Or round the aspiring tree-top twine,
And reach for a state still higher.

As each, on the good of her sisters bent,
Is busy and cares for all;
We hope for an evening with hearts content,
For the winter of life without lament
That summer is gone with its hours misspent,
And the harvest is past recall!
"How Doth the Little Busy Bee"

by Isaac Watts

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How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to storeit well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
The Butterfly and the Bee

by William Lisle Bowles

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Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a laboring bee;
"Thou hast no colors of the sky
On painted wings like me."

"Poor child of vanity! those dyes,
And colors bright and rare,"
With mild reproof, the bee replies,
"Are all beneath my care."

"Content I toil from morn till eve,
And, scorning idleness,
To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave
The vanity of dress."
The Song of the Bee

by Marian Douglas

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Buzz! buzz! buzz!
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow;
A jolly, good fellow,
And yet a great worker is he.

In days that are sunny
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy
He's making his wax:
On pinks and on lilies,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms,
He levies a tax!

Buzz! buzz! buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover,
He, humming, hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings:
He never gets lazy;
From thistle and daisy,
And weeds of the meadow,
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz! buzz! buzz!
From morning's first light
Till the coming of night,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through.
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.
Apotheosis

by Emily Dickinson

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Come slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee,
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars — enters,
And is lost in balms!
Could I but ride indefinite,

by Emily Dickinson

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Could I but ride indefinite,
As doth the meadow-bee,
And visit only where I liked,
And no man visit me,

And flirt all day with buttercups,
And marry whom I may,
And dwell a little everywhere,
Or better, run away

With no police to follow,
Or chase me if I do,
Till I should jump peninsulas
To get away from you, —

I said, but just to be a bee
Upon a raft of air,
And row in nowhere all day long,
And anchor off the bar,—
What liberty! So captives deem
Who tight in dungeons are.
Possession

by Emily Dickinson

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Did the harebell loose her girdle
To the lover bee,
Would the bee the harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

Did the paradise, persuaded,
Yield her moat of pearl,
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the earl an earl?
The Bee

by Emily Dickinson

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Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry

Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.

His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!
The nearest dream recedes, unrealized

by Emily Dickinson

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The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
The heaven we chase
Like the June bee
Before the school-boy
Invites the race;
Stoops to an easy clover —
Dips — evades — teases — deploys;
Then to the royal clouds
Lifts his light pinnace
Heedless of the boy
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.

Homesick for steadfast honey,
Ah! the bee flies not
That brews that rare variety.
To make a prairie

by Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.
To The Bee Balm

by John Burroughs

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Unmoved I saw you blooming,
Your crimson cap uplooming
Above the jewel weed;
'T is true I passed unheeding,
Unmindful of your pleading,
Until she gave you heed.

But when she paused and plucked you,
And in her bosom tucked you,
And filled her girlish hands,
New beauty filled your measure,
You shone a woodland treasure
Amid the floral clans.

Your martial look grew tender,
More winsome was your splendor
With her beside the stream;
Rare gift to charm she brought you,
With her own graces fraught you,
Retouched your glowing beam.

I soon forgot my trouting,
Repented of my flouting
Your brave and festive look;
I saw in you new meaning,
A nodding or a leaning
Beside the purling brook
.

Oh, day I long shall cherish,
Nor let one vision perish
That filled each sunny hour.
The phoebe's mossy chamber,
The pool like liquid amber,
That mirrored maid and flower.
The Honey-Bee

by John B. Tabb

O bee, good-by!
Your weapon's gone,
And you anon
Are doomed to die;
But Death to you can bring
No second sting.
Wild Bees

by John Clare

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These children of the sun which summer brings
As pastoral minstrels in her merry train
Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings
And glad the cotters' quiet toils again.
The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole
In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies,
And never absent couzen, black as coal,
That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs,
With white and red bedight for holiday,

Right earlily a-morn do pipe and play
And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes.
And aye so fond they of their singing seem
That in their holes abed at close of day
They still keep piping in their honey dreams,
And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe
Round the sweet smelling closen and rich woods
Where tawny white and red flush clover buds
Shine bonnily and bean fields blossom ripe,
Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food
To these sweet poets of the summer fields;
Me much delighting as I stroll along
The narrow path that hay laid meadow yields,
Catching the windings of their wandering song.
The black and yellow bumble first on wing
To buzz among the sallow's early flowers,
Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring
Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers;
And one that may for wiser piper pass,
In livery dress half sables and half red,
Who laps a moss ball in the meadow grass
And hoards her stores when April showers have fled;
And russet commoner who knows the face
Of every blossom that the meadow brings,
Starting the traveller to a quicker pace
By threatening round his head in many rings:
These sweeten summer in their happy glee
By giving for her honey melody.
The Bee, Clover, and Thistle

Said she in a pet, 'one thing I know,'
As she rose in haste and departed,
'It is not those of the greatest show,
To whom for a favor 't is best to go,
Or that prove most generous-hearted!'

The Bee, Clover, and Thistle
Hannah Flagg Gould

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by Hannah Flagg Gould

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A Bee from her hive one morning flew,
A tune to the day-light humming;
And away she went, o'er the clear, bright dew,
Where the grass was green, the violet blue,
And the gold of the sun was coming.

And what first tempted the roving Bee
Was a head of the crimson clover.
'I've found a treasure betimes!' said she,
'And perhaps a greater I might not see,
If I travelled the field all over.

'My beautiful clover, so round and red,
There is not a thing in twenty
That lifts this morning so sweet a head
Above its leaves and its earthy bed,
With so many horns of plenty!'

The flow'rets were thick, which the clover crowned,
As the plumes in the helm of Hector,
And each had a cell that was deep and round;
Yet it would not impart, as the bee soon found,
One drop of its precious nectar.

She cast in her eye where the honey lay,
And her pipe she began to measure;
But she saw at once it was clear as day,
That it would not go down one half the way
To the place of the envied treasure.

Said she in a pet, 'one thing I know,'
As she rose in haste and departed,
'It is not those of the greatest show,
To whom for a favor 't is best to go,
Or that prove most generous-hearted!'

A fleecy flock came into the field,
And one of its members followed
The scent of the clover, till between
Her nibbling teeth its head was seen,
And then in a moment swallowed.

'Ha, ha!' said the Bee, as the clover died,
'Her fortune's smile was fickle!
And now I can get my wants supplied
By a humble flower with a rough outside,
And even a scale and prickle.'

Then she flew to one that by man and beast
Was shunned for its pointed bristle;
But it injured not the bee in the least;
And she filled her pocket, and had a feast
From the bloom of the purple Thistle.

The generous Thistle's life was spared
In the home where the Bee first found her;
Till she grew so old she was hoary-haired,
And her snow-white locks with the silk compared,
As they shone where the sun beamed round her.
The Bee and the Child

by Hannah Flagg Gould

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Come here, little Bee,
There are fresh flowers by me;
Come, and just let me see
How your honey is made!
'I can't, for I fear
That, for coming too near,
I should pay very dear,
So I can't—I'm afraid!'

O, feel no alarm;
Not a leg, nor an arm,
Nor a wing will I harm.
You may here sip your fill.
'Pretty maid, then I'll come
Close beside you and hum,
And you shall have some
Of the sweets I distil.'

Then my trust shall be free
As yours is in me,
And be sure, little Bee,
That you do'nt use your sting!
'Oh! no! no! — since I flew
From the cell where I grew,
None has known me to do
So ungrateful a thing!'

Then why thus supplied
With a sting, but to hide
And to keep it untried,
Out of sight, little Bee?
'He, who gave me my sting
And my swift gauzy wing,
Bids me not harm a thing
That would not injure me!'
On a Honey Bee

by Philip Freneau

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Thou born to sip the lake or spring,
Or quaff the waters of the stream,
Why hither come on vagrant wing?—
Does Bacchus tempting seem—
Did he, for you, the glass prepare?—
Will I admit you to a share?

Did storms harrass or foes perplex,
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay—
Did wars distress, or labours vex,
Or did you miss your way?—
A better seat you could not take
Than on the margin of this lake.

Welcome!—I hail you to my glass:
All welcome, here, you find;
Here let the cloud of trouble pass,
Here, be all care resigned.—
This fluid never fails to please,
And drown the griefs of men or bees.

What forced you here, we cannot know,
And you will scarcely tell—
But cheery we would have you go
And bid a glad farewell:
On lighter wings we bid you fly,
Your dart will now all foes defy.

Yet take not oh! too deep a drink,
And in the ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said
To perish in a sea of red.

Do as you please, your will is mine;
Enjoy it without fear—
And your grave will be this glass of wine,
Your epitaph—a tear—
Go, take your seat in Charon's boat,
We'll tell the hive, you died afloat.
The Decision

by Kate Slaughter McKinney

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A dispute once arose in a bee-hive
As to which of the little brown bees
Could gather the sweetest nectar
From blossoms or budding trees.

The queen tried in vain to discover
Some method the riot to quell;
But a challenge for war had been sounded,
And threatened was each honey cell.

So she spoke in a voice most persuasive—
“He shall sit on my throne for an hour,
Who brings from the store-house of nature,
The juice of the sweetest-lipped flower.”

Away flew the brown little workers,
Away out of sight o’er the hill;
Then backward and forward they flitted,
The honey-cups eager to fill.

One famished the heart of a lily,
And drank from its milky bud;
One opened the vein of a rose leaf,
And licked up the crimson blood.

To a poppy-bed still one hurried,
On a downy cot he crept,
But all-day in the silken blankets,
Unconscious there he slept.

Another flew off to the meadow,
And punctured the daisy’s cap;
A swarm had encompassed a fountain,
Where gurgled the sugar-tree sap.

A fourth and a fifth to a mansion
Had followed a bridal pair;
One strangled the bud on her bosom,
One mangled the wreath on her hair.

But the sixth one paused at a cottage,
Where a sick girl sleeping lay;
And there by the open window,
Blossomed a hyacinth spray.

A youth stood near in the shadows,
And watching the dreamer’s face,
A tear rolled down from his eyelid
And fell on the hyacinth vase.

It was only the work of a moment
For a busy bee to do,
To flavor affections tear-drop
With the extract, “flower-dew.”

So he gathered this precious honey,
And, polishing up his sting,
He flitted out of the window,
With gold dust under his wing.

Such a night in the little bee-hive
Before was never known;
For the hyacinth’s rich moist pollen
Had paved the way to the throne.
I taste a liquor never brewed

by Emily Dickinson

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I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!
The Bees

by Thomas Hastings

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Oh, mother dear, pray tell me where
The bees in winter stay?
The flowers are gone they feed upon,
So sweet in summer’s day.

My child, they live within the hive,
And have enough to eat;
Amid the storm they’re clean and warm,
Their food is honey sweet.
Say, mother dear, how came it there?
Did father feed them so?
I see no way in winter’s day
That honey has to grow.

No, no, my child; in summer mild
The bees laid up their store
Of honey-drops in little cups,
Till they would want no more.
In cups, you said—how are they made?
Are they as large as ours?
Oh, no; they’re all made nice and small,
Of wax found in the flowers.

Our summer’s day, to work and play,
Is now in mercy given,
And we must strive, long as we live,
To lay up stores in heaven.

¹⁹Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: ²⁰But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: ²¹For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

– Matthew 6:19-21
KJV

“
The Drop of Honey

by Albert Moore Longley

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Sweet flowers, by light-winged zephyrs softly fanned,
By busy insects, humming o er you, scanned;
In forest glade, and on the water strand,
In loveliness ye bloom.
Alas! ye're faded now; for Autumn's breath
Hath swept the glade, the strand, and scattered death
On every hand, and with its frosty teeth
Hath nipped you for the tomb.

But flowers, your sweets ye've left behind, to cheer
The heart and feast the taste we'd shed a tear;
For like the good, whose good works still live here,
Ye fade—and droop—and die:
And though ye're gone, there yet remains, to lure
The most fastidious, a liquid pure,
Which bursts in plenty forth, so sweet, from your
Ambrosial nectary.

From out the fractured cell, the honey-drop
Was gushing clear, and I essayed to stop
Its downward course; so with a hasty scoop
I caught the limpid store:
But, O within that drop there lurked, unseen,
A sting acute, and poisonous; which e'en
Did pierce my mouth; the smart how keen!
My soul cried out—no more!

Still to my smarting palate it would cling,
As 'twere exulting in the pain 't could bring;
Till gladly I drew forth the ruthless thing,
And ever since that day,
Careful am I, when I do honey eat,
To know if it has not a sting, to cheat
Me of the joy that s oft so passing sweet,
And dash the cup away.

Moral

Examine well the honey ere you taste;
The sweetest pleasures here, if sought in haste,
May give you pain—nay, they will often bring,
Unseen by careless eyes, a deadly sting.
Wild Honey

by Raymond Holden

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Still in my fingers the stings
Still in my ears the sound
Of bees and their wings.
Still in my temples the pound
Of hatchet swings.
Still in the trees the sigh
Of silences.
Still from the hive of the sky
Darknesses swarming the trees
And among these
The Owl's cry.

O, Heart, Heart, Heart!
Let me more easily
Lift hands and part
The hanging certainty
And strength of home
Whereto I come
From the enchanted bed
Of stranger Beauty, she who sleeps
Forever in the deeps
Of heart and head!

Still in my ears the sound
Of bees, in my heart the pain
Of one more passion found
And lost again—
Lost and gone with the bees
To swarm strange trees of lonely
Planets unseen from these,
Leaving me honey only
And a starless breeze.
Honey

by Hilda Conkling

There's a busy hum in the farm meadow
As the bees go from daisy to clover-top
Humming, humming as the horizon clouds blow nearer,
Humming, humming on this gay June morning.
Even the vineyards are in bloom:
The grape-flower breath comes on the breeze
Something like breath of primroses that bloom in evening light
And laugh at what goes on in the world.
A More Ancient Mariner

by Bliss Carman

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The swarthy bee is a buccaneer,
A burly, velveted rover,
Who loves the booming wind in his ear
As he sails the seas of clover.

A waif of the goblin pirate crew,
With not a soul to deplore him,
He steers for the open verge of blue
With the filmy world before him.

Out in the day, haphazard, alone,
Booms the old vagrant hummer,
With only his whim to pilot him
Through the splendid vast of summer.

His flimsy sails abroad on the wind
Are shivered with fairy thunder;
On a line that sings to the light of his wings
He makes for the lands of wonder.

He harries the ports of the Hollyhocks,
And levies on poor Sweetbrier;
He drinks the whitest wine of Phlox,
And the Rose is his desire.

He hangs in the Willows a night and a day;
He rifles the Buckwheat patches;
Then battens his store of pelf galore
Under the tautest hatches.

He woos the Poppy and weds the Peach,
Inveigles Daffodilly,
And then like a tramp abandons each
For the gorgeous Canada Lily.

There's not a soul in the garden world
But wishes the day were shorter,
When Mariner B. puts out to sea
With the wind in the proper quarter.

Or, so they say! But I have my doubts;
For the flowers are only human,
And the valour and gold of a vagrant bold
Were always dear to woman.

He dares to boast, along the coast,
The beauty of Highland Heather,—
How he and she, with night on the sea,
Lay out on the hills together.

His morals are mixed, but his will is fixed;
He prospers after his kind,
And follows an instinct, compass-sure,
The philosophers call blind.

And that is why, when he comes to die,
He'll have an easier sentence
Than some one I know who thinks just so,
And then leaves room for repentance.

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