 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
121
BUTTERFLIES
Freebooters of the sunlight, blue and black,
Glimmering with gold you go your velvet ways
From flower to flower, from weed to weed, and back,
Demanding toll of all the honeyed days,
Nature accommodating all your needs,
As once she did when with unaltered face
She fed the worm as now the fly she feeds.
Glimmering with gold you go your velvet ways
From flower to flower, from weed to weed, and back,
Demanding toll of all the honeyed days,
Nature accommodating all your needs,
As once she did when with unaltered face
She fed the worm as now the fly she feeds.
The worm! how long since you forgot the worm
Unsightly that you were? the chrysalis
Your life endured; the dark, prenatal term
Of your existence, wherein naught of bliss
Or beauty was.—Now out of night returned,
Pinioned and plumed, your life is one long kiss
On Summer's languid lips for which you yearned.
Unsightly that you were? the chrysalis
Your life endured; the dark, prenatal term
Of your existence, wherein naught of bliss
Or beauty was.—Now out of night returned,
Pinioned and plumed, your life is one long kiss
On Summer's languid lips for which you yearned.
This was your hope in darkness, where your dreams
Were all of wings and rainbows, manifold,
Which transformation touched and changed to gleams,
Materializing their ethereal gold,
That burst your prison house and rose to range
With joy, forgetting all the life of old;
The new accepted as if nothing strange.
Were all of wings and rainbows, manifold,
Which transformation touched and changed to gleams,
Materializing their ethereal gold,
That burst your prison house and rose to range
With joy, forgetting all the life of old;
The new accepted as if nothing strange.
122
Go your glad ways of fragrance and of light,
Following the dream, forevermore that lures,
Beyond the shadow of immortal night
That holds the soul: the dream, through which endures
Hope which hath led the world for centuries,—
The hope within the heart which still assures
The soul of many immortalities.
Following the dream, forevermore that lures,
Beyond the shadow of immortal night
That holds the soul: the dream, through which endures
Hope which hath led the world for centuries,—
The hope within the heart which still assures
The soul of many immortalities.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |