butterfly

AS a butterfly renew'd,

When in life I breath'd my last,

To the spots my flight I wing,

Scenes of heav'nly rapture past,

Over meadows, to the spring,
Round the hill, and through the wood.

Soon a tender pair I spy,

And I look down from my seat

On the beauteous maiden's head--

When embodied there I meet

All I lost as soon as dead,
Happy as before am I.

Him she clasps with silent smile,

And his mouth the hour improves,

The girl's far treble, muted to the heat,
calls like a fainting bird across the fields
to where her flock lies panting for her voice,
their black horns buried deep in marigolds.

They climb awake, like drowsy butterflies,
and press their red flanks through the tall branched grass,
and as they go their wandering tongues embrace
the vacant summer mirrored in their eyes.

Led to the limestone shadows of a barn
they snuff their past embalmed in the hay,
while her cool hand, cupped to the udder's fount,

This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!

Butterflies are white and blue
In this field we wander through.
Suffer me to take your hand.
Death comes in a day or two.

All the things we ever knew
Will be ashes in that hour,
Mark the transient butterfly,
How he hangs upon the flower.

Suffer me to take your hand.
Suffer me to cherish you
Till the dawn is in the sky.
Whether I be false or true,
Death comes in a day or two.

188

Make me a picture of the sun—
So I can hang it in my room—
And make believe I'm getting warm
When others call it "Day"!

Draw me a Robin—on a stem—
So I am hearing him, I'll dream,
And when the Orchards stop their tune—
Put my pretense—away—

Say if it's really—warm at noon—
Whether it's Buttercups—that "skim"—
Or Butterflies—that "bloom"?
Then—skip—the frost—upon the lea—
And skip the Russet—on the tree—
Let's play those—never come!

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

Lord, let me live, that more and more
Your wonder world I may adore;
With every dawn to grow and grow
Alive to graciousness aglow;
And every eve in beauty see
Reason for rhapsody.
II
Lord, let me bide, that I may prove
The buoyant brightness of my love
For sapphire sea and lyric sky
And buttercup and butterfly;
And glory in the golden thought
Of rapture You have wrought.
III
Lord, let me linger, just for this,--

Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.

Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they climb,
Like thin globes of amethyst,
Wandering opals keeping tryst

I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,
"Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain-turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mould,
A coffin borne through sleet,
And icy clods above it rolled,
While fierce the tempests beat--
Away!--I will not think of these--