Mastodawn

50+ Music Oct 26, 2025

"Roll, Jordan, Roll" (#Roud 6697), also "Roll, Jordan", is a #spiritual created by enslaved African Americans, developed from a song written by #IsaacWatts in the 18th century which became well known among #slaves in the United States during the 19th century. Appropriated as a coded message for escape, by the end of the #AmericanCivilWar it had become known through much of the eastern United States. In the 19th century, it #helped inspire #blues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM15iIE_S_Y

MAHALIA JACKSON ~ Roll, Jordon, Roll

YouTube

grammaticus May 20, 2025

A poem for World Bee Day: “How Doth the Little Busy Bee” by Isaac Watts

Bees are small winged insects that, together with other pollinators, play a vital role in preserving and maintaining biodiversity. So much of life on our planet depends on the labour of these hardworking and disciplined creatures. In the year 2017, the United Nations declared May 20 as World Bee Day, in recognition of their importance. And why May 20? It happens to be the birthday of Anton Janša, the 18th century Slovenian apiarist whose research and published studies laid the foundation of modern apiculture.

Anton Janša, a pioneer of modern apiculture

You can find a few links to resources on Janša and the history of apiculture in the Additional Resources section below, but the focus of this post is actually going to be an old poem that you can use in your own literary celebration of World Bee Day.

Titled “How Doth the Little Busy Bee”, the poem was written by the English writer and theologian Isaac Watts (1674–1748), today best known for his numerous church hymns, many of which are still sung across the English-speaking world, and remain well-known globally.

Isaac Watts, the father of English hymnody

Watts uses the example of the little busy bee as a model for human life. The poem’s moral lesson is that – with the bee as an example and symbol of a good, productive life – we should avoid being idle and lazy, and spend our time in books, or work, or healthful play instead.

The central idea of the poem echoes an English proverb that you may have heard before: “idle hands do the devil’s work”, also expressed as “the devil makes work for idle hands” and similarly. I love how that poet’s emphasis is not simply on keeping ourselves busy with physical work or material productivity, but that we should pay just as must attention to our intellectual and spiritual endeavours.

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skillfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour 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.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Audio of the poem “How Doth the Busy Little Bee”

Isaac Watts – Wikipedia entry

Janša’s Memorial Apiary

Pioneers of Slovenian Beekeping

World Bee Day – the official U.N. webpage

NOTES

I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.

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COVER PHOTO CREDIT

Dustin Humes via Unsplash