Lee Hoiby: The Life of the Bee (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


That the world is painfully beautiful painfully sad
That spent blossoms recall earth under which they once slept
Remembering air into which they now fall

Input by Jeffery Beam

2. The Spirit of the Hive

Language: English

Authorship

Jeffery Beam


Back in the shaggy
underbelly
of the hive
in the quick amber
of the Queen's chamber
the message
passes, testifies
phenomena of order. 
Come.Come
with me to the sweet
chestnut flower,
the viola and the fox-
glove.
Finger and invade
the low-slung
swinging willow. 
In circuitous dances
it tumbles: 
the one prayer.
Before and after.
Precise as distance.

Input by Jeffery Beam

3. The Queen

Language: English

Authorship

Jeffery Beam

The Fountain


In collaboration with my others
I build this hive. As I am
Goddess, this, then, is my cathedral.
Built of wax and lives. Of light
and honey.
It grows around me.

My first sensation
was of yellow: a hum
forcing my skin to see.
Since then I have sung
the praises of this operation.
And counted the mysteries.
Storing my drooly jewels.

4. The Sting

Language: English

Authorship

Jeffery Beam

The Life of the Bee


With great stealth and smoke
approach our dome. For if not,
a flame, dry and burning, a dazzling
destruction, only
momentary,
will greet you.

You, who threaten, let
this pin-prick, this red
fever-bite, be a warning.
In our saracen tunnels,
we hold our own, asking
nothing.

5. The Swarm

Language: English

Authorship

Jeffery Beam


First, the miraculous
droning, sibilant
dances directing and thumping, 
buzzing in the foundation,
snipping and cutting
green air. 
A great muffled drum,
the chorus tenses.
Its sibyls pour out 
in a drunken jet
to sing it:the bee-flock,
the thunder-polleners 
who tell exodus in a roaring tissue
their matriarch with them
throbbing Exalt! 
Exalt! up to the pear tree.
Then, from the mass molten
with magnetism and cracks, 
a yawn explodes, clumps
to the pear limb,
and silences. 
Even now, scouts shuttle
through the branches making
fiery mummery to the sun: 
inciting compass.
The fathoming nucleus
waits for the telling. 
This is a thing,
some will say,
men will not do.

Input by Jeffery Beam