‘Be gone', the words that sent me out into the day As though I were an actor in a play A silent green midsummer of dismay Where I did not see a bee, an Apis failed to fly Espy did not my eye, no bee No anthophile today I wondered were they on a holiday? And where do they all go when they're away? But then I thought perhaps the queen was dead And all the workers fled The royal jelly bled, O dreadful, O! No flower would be kissed upon its head No strawberry or bean roused from its bed And all of destiny is gathered in a garden Darkened by the sun who's sulking up behind the shed Be good, be bad, be here, bee gone… ‘Be gone!', is what the Mother's really trying to say ‘Get out of me and kindly crawl away… You have a very parasitic way Of taking everything and rarely paying The worker bee has only just one sting But you are like the wasp you poison everything And it's only in defence she has to choose To fatally abuse the spider in the tree The clumsy lover's knee As blissfully she comes in clover' When all you want to do is get it over And leg it up the dirty money tree Well it isn't any great surprise no bee Has buzzed before my eyes or that I should surmise that we should disappear And be gone Be good, be bad, be here, bee gone…