University of Virginia Library

“Well, once there was a little girl.”
“That's you,”
They cried. “Yes, it was I, but 'twill not do
For you to interrupt.
“One day in June
She and her brother took their books at noon
And sat down on the grass, where lilacs made
A green and purple tent with pleasant shade.
They meant to study, but the day was hot;
And watching birds and bugs, they soon forgot
The lessons, and began to idly trace
With pencil-marks the atlas's old face.
But presently, with slow and sleepy gait,
As if they never heard of being late,
Two caterpillars crawled up on the map,
And stopped, and snuffed, and made their feelers snap
With wisest look, on land and on the sea.
‘Halloo! old fellows,’ cried the boy. ‘You'll be
Two travelled worms, and you shall draw our ships.
Go faster, now, or you shall feel the whips.’
Just then two dainty apple-blossoms blew
Down in their laps: one pink, one white. ‘And you
Shall be our ships,’ he cried; ‘one called “The Rose,”
The other, “Snow-bird.”’
“Then his sister chose
‘The Rose’ for hers; and with fine silken strings
They made the caterpillars, helpless things,
Fast to the ships, then watched to see them start.
Oh! ne'er before did worms play such a part;
Oh! ne'er before such ships go gliding through
The seas. Each child a curving stamen picked
From out a tiger-lily bud, and pricked
The sluggish caterpillars right and left
Until they must have been of sense bereft,
If any sense they had.
“‘Oh! now I know
What I will do; for gold and pearls I'll go
To Africa; the good “Snow-bird” shall fly
Past all these islands,’ said the boy.
“‘And I
Will carry first a whole ship-load of bread
To these poor Irishmen who are half dead
With famine,’said the girl; ‘then through the Straits
Of old Gibraltar I will seek the gates
Of Thebes. Oh, dear! all of the River Nile
My caterpillar covers up. Don't smile,
Bad boy; yours is as much too big, and more,
To get between Madeira and the shore.
The open ocean is a better place
For ships towed at a caterpillar's pace.
I'm going round the world, like Captain Cook:
Here is the very track marked out he took.’
‘And so will I,’ cried he; ‘see who will win:
The ship that without cheating first gets in
Shall be the champion ship.’
“Then hard and fast
The poor worms' legs were pricked. They hurried past
Whole continents in seconds. Side by side
These funny racers crawled. No time nor tide
Made odds to them: they thought but of escape.
At last, just as the ‘Snow-bird’ round the Cape
Of Good Hope turned, lo! in a fuzzy ball
Her caterpillar rolled him up, and no
Amount of pricks and shoves could make him go
Another step, or straighten out. The race
Was over, but ‘The Rose’ kept on apace;
Poor caterpillar! patient o'er and o'er
Cook's track in seventeen seventy-three and four,
Through Artic seas and past firm fields of ice,
Past tropic isles, where trade-winds load with spice,
He toiled. At last the play grew dull. ‘The Rose’
Went into port; the ‘Snow-bird’ too; then those
Young tyrants set their victims free; more dead
Than live, the puzzled worms, with feeble tread,
Stole off, and ever after were esteemed,
No doubt, in their own country, as beseemed
Such travellers.
“As for the girl and boy,
They grew up just like all the rest, through joy
And grief, ‘with books, and work, and healthful play;’
But always they remembered well this day;
And when they journeyed in good earnest, said,
Sometimes with pensive laugh: ‘That trip we made
By map, beneath the lilac-bush, was best;
No noise, no smoke, no cinders to molest
On land; no stormy gales on any sea;
Rivers and roads, hotels and harbors free;
Each step of that we both remember yet,
While last year's jaunts we jumble and forget.
Oh! sweet, wise days, when caterpillars made
Fast time enough for us 'neath lilac's shade;
And fancy was so strong that we took trips
Round the whole world in apple-blossom ships.’”