I Stole Them From A Bee - Analysis

Honey as a Small, Daring Crime

This tiny poem turns a childlike act into a moral drama: the speaker admits I stole them from a Bee and immediately frames the theft as something that must be answered for. The central claim is that sweetness is never entirely innocent—what tastes like a gift may have been taken, and taking creates a debt. Even the vague them (likely honey, or flowers, or some “sweet” thing) matters: Dickinson keeps the object indistinct so the focus lands on the act of stealing and the desire to be forgiven for it.

The Bee’s Authority, and an Unlikely Mercy

The poem’s surprise is that the injured party becomes the judge. The bee is not just an insect here; it’s the rightful owner of sweetness and the one who can pardon. The last line, He pardoned me!, gives the bee a human (even divine) pronoun, elevating it into a figure of authority. Yet the authority is gentle: pardon replaces punishment. The tone holds a bright, slightly mischievous confession—like someone thrilled to have gotten away with something—yet it also carries a real tremor of accountability, because the speaker feels the need to confess at all.

Thee: A Second Listener in the Scene

The middle of the poem introduces a new presence: Because Thee and Sweet plea. Thee can read as a beloved person the speaker wants to please, or as a reverent address that brushes against prayer. Either way, the theft is motivated by devotion: the speaker steals not out of hunger but out of longing to offer sweetness to someone else. That creates the poem’s key tension: an act done for love is still an act of taking. The speaker’s desire to honor Thee collides with the fact that the bee’s labor is being appropriated.

Forgiveness That Depends on Charm

The turn comes with Sweet plea: the speaker doesn’t earn pardon through restitution, only through appeal. That is both charming and unsettling. If the bee pardons because the plea is sweet, then sweetness becomes a kind of power that can excuse harm. The poem leaves us suspended in that contradiction: the speaker is delighted to be forgiven, but we’re left wondering what, exactly, has been made right—especially when the poem ends on the exclamation, as if relief is the final moral outcome.