Emily Dickinson

A Bee his burnished Carriage

Summary


"A Bee his burnished Carriage" is a short poem that stages a bee's arrival at a rose as a grand, golden-wheeled visit. The bee drives boldly in, and the rose receives him with frank tranquillity, holding nothing back from his greedy appetite. In just a few lines, Emily Dickinson turns a garden moment into a quiet drama of appetite, surrender and aftermath, ending on the very different things each visitor carries away.

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A Bee his burnished Carriage
Drove boldly to a Rose—
Combinedly alighting—
Himself—his Carriage was—
The Rose received his visit
With frank tranquillity
Withholding not a Crescent
To his Cupidity—
Their Moment consummated—
Remained for him—to flee—
Remained for her—of rapture
But the humility.

A burnished bee alighting on an open red rose — illustrating Emily Dickinson's poem "A Bee his burnished Carriage"
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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, celebrated for her compact, dash-filled verse and unconventional rhymes. Here she draws on her lifelong love of gardens and flowers, giving a bee and a rose the voices of an unequal courtship.