The Decision.
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.
