The poem “The nearest Dream recedes—unrealized--” by the revered poet Emily Dickinson describes the relationship between us, as humans, and our dreams dearest to our hearts. It starts with the first line reiterating the title, which further drums the message that our most cherished goals fade away in the blink of an eye, slipping from our very fingers.
The second line, “The Heaven we chase,” juxtaposes our dreams to heaven—something that might not even exist. We often pursue dreams even though we know we’ll never catch them. The comparison of the "June bee" in the third line brings the very nature of a bee to mind—it chases after flowers for its pollen to brew its honey. In short, flowers are the bees’ beloved dream, as heaven might be for humans.
The third and fourth lines introduce the school-boy, the portrayal of the oblivious dream-chaser called a human. Emily Dickinson writes, “Before the School Boy/Invites the Race--” The bee is inviting the boy to chase it—it represents a secret desire or a goal that the schoolboy must catch. The next line— “stoops--to an easy Clover--”—carries the implication that the bee seems like it can be easily caught—but! It is only an illusion, for the next line describes the evading dance of the bee who teases the schoolboy with near success.
In the seventh- and eighth-lines Dickinson illustrates the departure of the bee, saying it left with its “light Pinnace” “to the Royal Clouds.” That is how the dream slips from our reaching fingertips, flying with its rowboat to the laughing sky that mocks the astonished boy in the next few lines. The heaven we had come so close to reaching left suddenly, unfeelingly—because, of course, dreams cannot care for us as we do for them. When the bee flies unexpectedly and lithely away the boy must realize that just as the bee flies at sudden, fate shifts hastily and changes at random, as fate is apt to. With an abrupt, cruel twist of fate our dreams buzz delightfully away from our waiting palm.
The last stanza of the poem connects the bee to its “steadfast Honey,” the never-expiring substance produced by an everchanging honeybee. The last two lines— “Ah! the Bee flies not/That brews that rare variety!” conceivably imply that when the bee remains sedentary, the boy can inexorably cradle it in his grasp and the humans can finally attain their dreams. Alas, that is a rare possibility—a rare variety seldom brewed.