The bee is not afraid of me
The bee is not afraid of me,I know the butterfly;The pretty people in the woodsReceive me cordially.
The brooks laugh louder when I come,The breezes madder play.Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?Wherefore, O summer's day?
Words in this poem
- cordially adv.
- In a cordial manner. Dr. H. More.
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The bee is not afraid of me is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, The bee is not afraid of me, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/the-bee-is-not-afraid-of-me.html, id L18901.
Form and metre
The bee is not afraid of me is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA-- meA · butterflyA · woods · cordially
- 2 -A-A come · playA · mists · dayA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The bee is not afraid of me, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| I know the butterfly; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The pretty people in the woods | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Receive me cordially. | 6 | ˘/·/˘˘ |
| The brooks laugh louder when I come, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The breezes madder play. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists? | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Wherefore, O summer's day? | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.