Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Bee
The honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o’er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his winter song,
Seeks not alone the rose’s glowing breast,
The lily’s dainty cup, the violet’s lips,
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely pressed
Within the poison chalice.
Anne C. Lynch Botta—The Lesson of the Bee.
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
Emily Dickinson—Poems. V. (Ed. 1891).
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!
Emily Dickinson—Poems. XV. The Bee.
Burly, dozing bumblebee,
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!
Emerson—The Humble-Bee.
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
*****
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
Emerson—The Humble-Bee.
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.
Gay—Rural Sports. Canto I. L. 82.
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.
Herbert—The Church. Providence.
For pitty, Sir, find out that Bee
Which bore my Love away
I’le seek him in your Bonnet brave,
I’le seek him in your eyes.
Herrick—Mad Nan’s Song.
“O bees, sweet bees!” I said; “that nearest field
Is shining white with fragrant immortelles.
Fly swiftly there and drain those honey wells.”
Helen Hunt Jackson—My Bees.
Listen! O, listen!
Here ever hum the golden bees
Underneath full-blossomed trees,
At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned.
Lowell—The Sirens. L. 94.
As busie as a Bee.
Lyly—Euphues and his England. P. 252.
The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaëton, 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.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. IV. Ep. 32.
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois’nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. 219.
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.
Henry V. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 188.
The solitary Bee
Whose buzzing was the only sound of life,
Flew there on restless wing,
Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.
Southey—Thalaba. Bk. VI. St. 13.
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.
Charles Tennyson Turner—A Summer Night in the Bee Hive.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
Watts—Against Idleness.
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.
Oscar Wilde—Her Voice.