Several Emily Dickinson poems with bees:
#81
We should not mind so small a flower --
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations nod --
So drunken, reel her Bees --
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees --
That whoso sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.
#128
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps --
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!
Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs --
How many trips the Tortoise makes --
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite --
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?
Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who'll let me out some gala day
With implements to fly away,
Passing Pomposity?
#134
Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower,
But I could never sell --
If you would like to borrow,
Until the Daffodil
Unties her yellow Bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the Bees, from Clover rows
Their Hock, and Sherry, draw,
Why, I will lend until just then,
But not an hour more!
#138
Pigmy seraphs -- gone astray --
Velvet people from Vevay --
Balles from some lost summer day --
Bees exclusive Coterie --
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with Emerald --
Venice could not show a check
Of a tint so lustrous meek --
Never such an Ambuscade
As of briar and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid --
I had rather wear her grace
Than an Earl's distinguished face --
I had rather dwell like her
Than be "Duke of Exeter" --
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the Bumblebee.
#155
The Murmur of a Bee
A Witchcraft -- yieldeth me --
If any ask me why --
'Twere easier to die --
Than tell --
The Red upon the Hill
Taketh away my will --
If anybody sneer --
Take care -- for God is here --
That's all.
The Breaking of the Day
Addeth to my Degree --
If any ask me how --
Artist -- who drew me so --
Must tell!
#206
The Flower must not blame the Bee --
That seeketh his felicity
Too often at her door --
But teach the Footman from Vevay --
Mistress is "not at home" -- to say --
To people -- any more!
#1035
Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due—
The Frogs got Home last Week—
Are settled, and at work—
Birds, mostly back—
The Clover warm and thick—
You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me—
Yours, Fly.
#1343
A single Clover Plank
Was all that saved a Bee
A Bee I personally knew
From sinking in the sky --
'Twixt Firmament above
And Firmament below
The Billows of Circumference
Were sweeping him away --
The idly swaying Plank
Responsible to nought
A sudden Freight of Wind assumed
And Bumble Bee was not --
This harrowing event
Transpiring in the Grass
Did not so much as wring from him
A wandering "Alas" --
#1627
The pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee,
Nor lineage of Ecstasy
Delay the Butterfly
On spangle journeys to the peak
Of some perceiveless thing --
The right of way to Tripoli
A more essential thing.
--
The Pedigree of Honey
Does not concern the Bee --
A Clover, any time, to him,
Is Aristocracy --
#1763
Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
Dickinson used the bee, a favorite symbol of Isaac Watts's (author of
Christian Psalmody, or,
The Psalms), as a defiant counter-emblem to his hymns. Her bees are irresponsible (138, 1343), enjoy la dolce vita (1627), and are pictured as seducers, traitors, buccaneers (81, 128, 134, 206, etc.). See
here
