University of Virginia Library

THE STINGLESS BEE.

The good people of the country (and there are many of them) who are laboring in the interests of universal peace, are doing a great and grand work. They have already, no doubt, prevented several bloody and expensive wars.

Their plans, when successful, will settle most of the national disputes, by means of courts of arbitration. This means, really, large and expensive lawsuits.

But none of the nations ought to disarm, in anticipation of such a result. When a decision is made, they must be ready to enforce it, against any nation that refuses to abide by it.

A hiver of thought, through nights and days
Forever inventing some new thing,
Was trying in long Burbankian ways,
To fashion a bee without a sting.
“O'er field and forest this friend could go,”
He mused, as he toiled, one summer day,
“And never a fight and never a foe
Its mission of splendor could delay.
“The time that it now in strife may use,
Could go to the peaceful help of men;
E'en children fondle it as they choose,
And never be stung—by bees—again.
“The syllable ‘less’, this planet o'er
On many a word has power to please;
And I shall be known, forever more,
As first deviser of stingless bees.”
That night there came to his restless bed,
A queen-bee, wrapped in a filmy dream:
A halo of power adorned her head—
Her eyes were soft with the mother-gleam.
“Strive not,” she said, “ingenious one,
To rob my child of its sole defense,
Or from the treasures that he has won,
To say to him ‘Helpless go you hence!’
“If through great floods of the life-strewn air,
Unarmed we speed him upon his way,
The humblest insect lingering there,
May mark him out for an easy prey.
“If into a honeyed flower he creep,
To harvest its swaying mines of gold,
Then wingless robbers on him can leap—
The sparrow's God may his death behold.
“And how of the treasures my palace boasts,
That man and woman so gaily share?—
Wild bees from the woods, in armored hosts,
With looted riches will fill the air!”
The hiver now, in his vision-dream,
A call from the tombs of patriots heard:
“Our monarch of sweets, 'twould surely seem,
Has given THIS NATION a warning-word!”