The poet watches the butterfly and speaks to it,
guessing in a fanciful way at its origin,
commenting on its way of life, and thinking of the
symbolic meaning that people in all ages have
associated with it.
Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child 5
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!
Thou wingèd blossom, liberated thing,
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,
Still held within the garden's fostering? 10
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight, and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o'er their parental bowers?
Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues-- 15
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,
Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues
With sudden splendor, and the treetops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee, 20
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?
Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young,
And flit on errands all the livelong day;
Each field mouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;
But thou art nature's freeman--free to stray
Unfettered through the wood, 5
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.
The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveler of the joyous earth!
One drop of honey gives satiety; 10
A second draft would drug thee past all mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows;
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.
And yet the soul of man upon thy wings 15
Forever soars in aspiration; thou
His emblem of the new career that springs
When death's arrest bids all his spirit bow.
He seeks his hope in thee
Of immortality. 20
Symbol of life, me with such faith endow!
1. What color was the butterfly that the poet
watched? What does he imagine it to be in the
second stanza? In the third? What does he say about
its habits in the fourth stanza? In the fifth?
2. What are the four stages in the life of a
butterfly? The Greeks represented Psyche, the soul,
with butterfly wings. Why? Express the meaning of
the last stanza in your own words.
3. Use these words in sentences of your own:
cipher, fostering, imbues, blazonry, satiety, orgy,
sprite, arrest, symbol.
4. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was an
American writer of essays and biography.