Poems About Butterflies

I've watched you now a full half-hour,Self-poised upon that yellow flower;And, little Butterfly! indeedI know not if you sleep or feed.How motionless! not frozen seasMore motionless! and thenWhat joy awaits you, when the breezeHas found you out among the trees,And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;Here rest your wings when they are weary;Here lodge as in a sanctuary!Come often to us, fear no wrong;Sit near us on the bough!We'll talk of sunshine and of song,And summer days, when we are young;Sweet childish days, that were as longAs twenty days are now.

Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,With Nature's secrets in thy tints unrolledThrough gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,Yet dear to every childIn glad pursuit beguiled,Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!

Thou winged blossom, liberated thing,What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,Still held within the garden's fostering?Will they too soar with the completed hours,Take flight, and be like thee

I hold you at last in my hand,Exquisite child of the air.Can I ever understandHow you grew to be so fair?

You came to my linden treeTo taste its delicious sweet,I sitting here in the shadow and shinePlaying around its feet.

Now I hold you fast in my hand,You marvelous butterfly,Till you help me to understandThe eternal mystery.

From that creeping thing in the dustTo this shining bliss in the blue!God give me courage to trustI can break my chrysalis too!

Methought I heard a butterflySay to a laboring bee;"Thou hast no colors of the skyOn painted wings like me."

"Poor child of vanity! those dyes,And colors bright and rare,"With mild reproof, the bee replies,"Are all beneath my care."

"Content I toil from morn till eve,And, scorning idleness,To tribes of gaudy sloth I leaveThe vanity of dress."

I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower,Where roses and lilies and violets meet;Roving for ever from flower to flower,And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet!I'd never languish for wealth, or for power,I'd never sigh to see slaves at my feet:I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower,Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet.

O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy,I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings;Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy,They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings.Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary;Power, alas! naught but misery brings!I'd be a Butterfly, sportive and airy,Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings!

What, though you tell me each gay little roverShrinks from the breath of the first autumn day:Surely 'tis better when summer is overTo die when all fair things are fading away.Some in life's winter may toil to discoverMeans of procuring a weary delay--I'd be a butterfly; living, a rover,Dying when fair things are fading away!

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,The children follow the butterflies,And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their fatherAnd stills the riot of pain and grief,Saying, 'Little ones, go and gatherOut of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

'You will find on it whorls and clots ofDull grey eggs that, properly fed,Turn, by way of the worm, to lots ofGlorious butterflies raised from the dead...,'

'Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,'The three-dimensioned preacher saith,So we must not look where the snail and the slug lieFor Psyche's birth.... And that is our death!

Stay near me--do not take thy flight!A little longer stay in sight!Much converse do I find in Thee,Historian of my Infancy!Float near me; do not yet depart!Dead times revive in thee:Thou bring'st, gay Creature as thou art!A solemn image to my heart,My Father's Family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,The time, when in our childish playsMy sister Emmeline and ITogether chaced the Butterfly!A very hunter did I rushUpon the prey:--with leaps and springsI follow'd on from brake to bush;But She, God love her! feared to brushThe dust from off its wings.

In the middle of our porridge platesThere was a blue butterfly paintedAnd each morning we tried who should reach the butterfly first.Then the Grandmother said: “Do not eat the poor butterfly.”That made us laugh.Always she said it and always it started us laughing.It seemed such a sweet little joke.I was certain that one fine morningThe butterfly would fly out of the plates,Laughing the teeniest laugh in the world,And perch on the Grandmother’s lap.