University of Virginia Library


163

A DEAD BUTTERFLY.

Immortal were you named when earth was young,
Yet here, with wings where florid fire still stays,
On the cold strand of death I find you flung,
Blent with its desultory waifs and strays!
Ah! blithe and lovely Bedouin of the air,
Once to such revelling life so richly wed,
Well might I dream, while gazing on you there,
That immortality itself lay dead!