1.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .
the droning
the whirring
the humming
the sizzling
the hissing
the soughing
the moaning
the whizzing
the ceaseless
“murmuring of innumerable bees”
“They forage with wit and dexterity”
“they take the best from every flower”
“they read the weather skillfully”
“they watch for the coming of showers”
“they think carefully about what they do”
“they have no desires”
“they care only about the future of the hive”
“they excel mankind in rationality, in that
they only recognize the common interest”
“their dwelling and diet are common to all alike”
“they are graven in their manners and studious of peace”
“theirs is a kindness born of benevolence”
“they have a system of manners that outstrips that
of all the other animals”
“they live in an atmosphere pervaded thoroughly by love”
“every working bee is not only an artisan;
he is likewise a soldier, always arm’d for defense”
“they have the haughty dignity of a people who adore only their own handiwork”
“they have a kind of wisdom coming near unto
the understanding of man”
Fame’s a motive which they never feel
Their ruling passion is the public weal
“They have so polite a Government”
“they teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom”
“they abhor polyarchy as anarchy”
“they live under one law”
“they have a commonwealth republic”
“they have a constitutional monarchy”
“they are a perfect object-lesson of what Socialism must mean”
“all the garnered wealth of the state
is held in common for the common good”
“their fiction of royalty is maintained
in harmony with the perfect republican spirit”
“they are neither slaves to tyranny nor ruled by wild democracy”
“they have the most natural and absolute form of government”
“they are an admirable model for they kill the unemployed”
“They embody love for the Queen”
“she is the soul of the city”
“she is the mother of her people”
“she is the idol, the fetish, the living god of the community”
“she is an object of legal and public adoration”
“she is a long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking creature”
“how beautifully her body tapers,
how distinguished she looks”
“her beauty is like the finest horse that ever ran on Banstead Downs”
“she has beautiful long legs of gold,
or rather of transparent amber”
“she has a magnificent body, great docility,
certain almost unrestrainable impulses and passions”
“her wings are very short in proportion to her body,
she is not unlike a tall woman with a very short cloak”
“she is a delicate, costly piece of mechanism”
“she possesses only the merest rudiments of intelligence”
“she is an egg-laying slave to the hive”
“she has a yielding, womanish love of the yoke”
“in her deportment she is grave, solemn, and calm”
“she inhabits a palace in the inside of this city,
a dwelling vast and remarkable”
“she surveys the singing masons building roofs of gold”
“each one wants to be next to her and delights to be seen on duty”
“she is a benevolent monarch, for she has no sting”
“she is desired and honored by all, and
“though weak in strength,
“yet since she values wisdom she prevails”
“she is not elected, for the vulgar often want judgment”
“if she bids them swarm, they obey”
“a hive, left long queenless, falls into sloth and riot”
