Explore "The Apiary" by James McIntyre on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Apiary is a bee village, / From thence they fly bent on pillage, / Extracting honey from the flowers;
They care not who doth own the bowers.
They seize on garden or on field, / Wherever blossoms sweets do yield;
'Mong garden flowers or fields of clover / They do roam about all over.
For their own use they make the honey, / Though owners sell it oft for money.
The bees so skilful do design / Their honey comes and they love sunshine.
From flower to flower they fly on wing, / And each one armed with a sharp sting, / Determined all the sweets to sieze, / Those marauding honey bees.
They live in a great commonwealth, / And they punish fraud or stealth;
They busy toil from morn 'till 'een, / And they are loyal to their Queen.
But bees, like men, they sometimes thrive / By robbing of their neighbors hive;
The weaker from their homes they drive, / While stronger flourish and survive.