The Bee by Emily Dickinson

"Oh, for a bee’s experience of clovers and of noon!"

The Bee
by Emily Dickinson

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!

From Poems, ed. by Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson (Roberts Brothers, 1890).