How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

In this short poem the speaker Eden is a personified entity, and could be representative of the persona herself, anticipating a lover who will bring her to a heavenly state, but hoping he will approach sensitively and slowly. There is a definite sense of fear and coyness in this speaker whose lips are “unused to Thee”. “Bashful” is a word rarely used today, but appropriate for the time, meaning shy or coy. In the second stanza Dickinson uses the imagery of a bee that is drawn to a flower and achieves consummation of desire by consuming nectar.

The reader is left with some unanswered questions; is the state of weakness, like the fainting Bee, truly what the speaker wants? And then, roles change; the Bee seems to be male and predatory, a different persona. Inexperienced as a nineteenth century virgin will be, it is not suprising that Dickinson is uneasy. In stanza one she was simply “sipping” Jasmine, or Jessamine, taking her time, but the bee behaves differently and keenly. The reader may be left unsure as to whether the poet prefers the “bashful” persona or the Bee’s sensual fulfilment.

The poet’s unease about the submission required of women when they married may suggest hesitancy. In Dickinson’s poem “I’m ‘wife — I’ve finished that” she explores this theme.

Structure
The poem comprises two quatrains or stanzas of four lines each. Dickinson’s use of her trademark dashes suggests strongly the hesitancy mentioned above. There is an ABCB rhyme scheme in both, with the perfect rhyming “Thee” and “Bee” in the first stanza, and the half-rhyming “hums” and “Balms” in the second.

The mood in the first stanza is hesitant and shy. Eden is approaching the speaker. In the second stanza the bee seeks nectar as if relieved.

Langauge and Imagery
It isn’t clear whose voice this is. The speaker doesn’t use the first person pronoun “I”, and therefore there this may be a universal persona; a representative of women who hesitate before sexual and social surrender.

The dominant image is the Bee, a simile set up at the end of stanza one, that changes the tone and trajectory of the poem from shyness to enthusiasm.

Language, as usual with Dickinson, is concise and dense.

See The Poetry of Emily Dickinson; Atlantic Review
BBC Podcast ‘In Our Time’ – Emily Dickinson

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments