Bee Poem, Bee Rap

My, how times change. Here’s a modern Bee Rap complete with bees “straight from the hood” —

and here is the Christina Rosetti poem that was recited by Margaret’s daughter, Emily, (played by twins Lucy and Josie Gallina) in Boardwalk Empire’s “What Does the Bee Do?”

This is reprinted from “The ideal Catholic readers” by Sister Mary Domitilla (1915):

WHAT DOES THE BEE DO

What does the bee do
Bring home honey
What does father do
Bring home money
And what does mother do
Lay out the money
And what does baby do
Eat up the honey

The reader also contains “Bed in Summer” by Robert Louis Stevenson and the much loved “Trees” by American poet, Joyce Kilmer who lost his life 3 years after the book was published in World War I.

The illustration comes from Christina Georgina Rossetti’s own 1893 children’s book “Sing-song: a nursery rhyme book” (with one hundred twenty illustrations)