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.