Unsexed

It was a wild rebellious drone
That loudly did complain;
He wished he was a worker bee
With all his might and main.

“I want to work,” the drone declared.
Quoth they, “The thing you mean
Is that you scorn to be a drone
And long to be a queen.

“You long to lay unnumbered eggs,
And rule the waiting throng;
You long to lead our summer flight,
And this is rankly wrong.”

Cried he, “My life is pitiful!
I only eat and wed,
And in my marriage is the end—
Thereafter I am dead.

“I would I were the busy bee
That flits from flower to flower;
I long to share in work and care
And feel the worker’s power.”

Quoth they, “The life you dare to spurn
Is set before you here
As your one great, prescribed, ordained,
Divinely ordered sphere!

“Without your, services as drone,
We should not be alive;
Your modest task, when well fulfilled,
Preserves the busy hive.

“Why underrate your blessed power?
Why leave your rightful throne
To choose a field of life that’s made
For working bees alone?”

Cried he, “But it is not enough,
My momentary task!
Let me do that and more beside:
To work is all I ask!”

Then fiercely rose the workers all,
For sorely were they vexed;
“O wretch!” they cried, “should this betide,
You would become unsexed!”

And yet he had not sighed for eggs,
Nor yet for royal mien;
He longed to be a worker bee,
But not to be a queen.