An uproar, a spruce-green sky, bound in iron, the murky sea running a sulphur scum, I saw a butterfly, suddenly. It clung between the ribs of the storm, wavering, and flung against the battering bone-wind. I remember it, glued to the grit of that rain-strewn beach that glowered around it, swallowed its startled design in the larger irridescence of unstrung dark. That wild, sour air, those miles of crouching forest, that moth when all enveloping space is a thin glass globe, swirling with storm tempt us to stare, and seize analogies. The Voice that stilled the sea of Galilee overtoned by the new peace, the fierce subhuman peace of such an east sky, blanched like Eternity. The meaning of the moth, even the smashed moth, the meaning of the moth— can't we stab that one angle into the curve of space that sweeps so unrelenting, far above, towards the subhuman swamp of under-dark? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DEPARTURE OF THE GOOD DAEMON by ROBERT HERRICK WORDLY WISE (5) by MOTHER GOOSE THE CONVENT THRESHOLD by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE GREEN LINNET by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 18. A PORTRAIT by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |