“How doth the little busy bee”
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
How skilfully she builds her cell;
How neat she spreads her wax,
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed;
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
Source: Bartleby.com (archived copy)
About this poem
“How doth the little busy bee” is the opening of “Against Idleness and Mischief,” from Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs for Children (1715). Watts (1674–1748) is also known as the author of hymns such as “Joy to the World.”
The bee, gathering honey “all the day,” is held up as a model of hard work. The poem’s moral is famous: “For Satan finds some mischief still / For idle hands to do.” It was learned by heart by generations of English children, and Lewis Carroll parodied it in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as “How doth the little crocodile.”