The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite :: :: University of Virginia Library

So idly sailing on an August sea
From zone to zone of dream, I look'd and saw,
Through the mauve spaces of litten air at noon,
Some sudden land-breeze bear a frighten'd moth
Far and away, its frail wings beating vainly.
Could my stretch'd hand have reach'd it, I had borne
That blithesome insect gladly back to shore:
It pass'd, blown onward, in the sunlight lost
And distance. Like a death-trap gleam'd the bay
Beneath it, and the dancing waves drew down—
As magnets draw—those drooping, wearied wings.
I will not say the creature sank indeed,
For anchor'd boats rock'd softly far and near,
Where the poor, pitiful, bewilder'd thing
Might rest in truth, though not return to shore:
I think the sea received it, those light wings
Were bruised and buffeted and broken there.

God knows I prize the spirit He pours in me,
And sacred hold for this the meanest life
Which shares my treasure; so a pang pass'd through
One heart for this sea-drifted butterfly!
My soul in fancy to herself assumed
That feeble shape and beat in fancy there,
On every wind dependent; watch'd with awe

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The swirling tide beneath her; felt the salt
And cold sea-spray her tiny wings benumb;
And sinking, shrinking, saw those shining waves
Leap up to meet her; while the death therein—
Because so foreign to a field-born life—
For her seem'd dreadful. But to-night I stand
With all man's spirit by the wind made strong,
And I see eastward an advancing cloud
Of stormy sable fill the midnight sky;
The high grey sea beats sullenly, its crests
Of seething foam a white, weird light give out.
As now that sea swells, on the wide beach chafing,
The heart expands within me, and the roar
Of breakers surging on the sand and stones
Wakes, in the deeps within, an answering voice,
Which speaks behind the soul, is clear, is loud.

Say, sorrow suffer'd may be progress made;
Say, pain can lift the nature which endures;
Bring forth the time-worn maxims of the streets:
But I believe, beyond all pain and grief,
That death lifts life. Friends, if the martyr's pangs
Exalt beyond our measure and enthrone
The stedfast spirit, through its tortures true,
Shall we not hold that hard, untimely deaths,
In some peculiar, undetermined way,
May compensate the natures wrung thereby?
Who proves it error? Does the bird whose nest
Is scorch'd about her in a burning wood,
Yet who'll not leave the five white eggs within,
Win nothing from endurance? No new sense
From that new, terrible and splendid scene
Unfolding round her? The bird's soul (believe it!)
Goes forth inform'd from those singed plumes of hers,
With some new sense indelibly endow'd
And greaten'd by it. The drown'd insect too,
Did that win nothing from the shining waste

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Of waves about it? Lord of life, thereon
The sun-born creature faced immensity;
One aspect of the vast and awful truth
Of solemn life intense this wind's light toy
Faced once and perish'd. From the sea-drench'd shell
The quicken'd essence issues forth enlarged.

I thank thee, Lord, Who hast the soul brought forth
From everlasting roots of perfect life,
That no life dies, howe'er minute or mean,
But multiplies its nature in the flesh
And individual strength by death renews;
That every crevice of the earth is fill'd
With plenitude of being, which indeed
May strive and suffer, but it grows through all.
Beyond each turn of life springs life again:
Face death then calmly, be it thine or mine;
Look onward, upward, both for beast and man—
Aye, even this sea-drifted butterfly!