The Butterfly and the Bee
Methought I heard a butterflySay to a labouring bee:“Thou hast no colours of the skyOn painted wings like me.”
“Poor child of vanity! those dyes,And colours bright and rare,”With mild reproof, the bee replies,“Are all beneath my care.
“Content I toil from morn to eve,And scorning idleness,To tribes of gaudy sloth I leaveThe vanity of dress.”
Words in this poem
- labouring a.
- That labors; performing labor; esp., performing coarse, heavy work, not requiring skill also, set apart for labor; as, laboring days.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- reproof n.
- Refutation; confutation; contradiction. [OE. reproef. See Proof, Reprove.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Butterfly and the Bee is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, The Butterfly and the Bee, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/the-butterfly-and-the-bee.html, id L25187.
Form and metre
The Butterfly and the Bee is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABAB butterflyA · beeB · skyA · meB
- 2 ABAB dyesA · rareB · repliesA · careB
- 3 ABAB eveA · idlenessB · leaveA · dressB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Methought I heard a butterfly | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| Say to a labouring bee: | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| “Thou hast no colours of the sky | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| On painted wings like me.” | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| “Poor child of vanity! those dyes, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| And colours bright and rare,” | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| With mild reproof, the bee replies, | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| “Are all beneath my care. | 6 | ······ |
| “Content I toil from morn to eve, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And scorning idleness, | 6 | ·/˘/˘˘ |
| To tribes of gaudy sloth I leave | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The vanity of dress.” | 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.