Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BUTTERFLY, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BUTTERFLY, by                    
First Line: He loitered on from flower to flower
Last Line: The monarch of a peaceful breast.
Subject(s): Butterflies; Insects; Nature; Wings; Bugs


He loitered on from flower to flower
With easy, undulating swing;
A guileless cheat of childhood's hour,
Without a care, without a sting.

Bloom after bloom he touched and passed
Lightly as fairy waves his wand;
Though hat in hand I followed fast,
He idly floated just beyond.

His life perchance was sweet as mine,
His work as useful in its sphere,
His brilliancy a gift divine,
To Nature's heart his presence dear.

At last I crushed him in my grasp
And spilled the splendor from his wing,
Unconscious of his pleading gasp,—
The dying, desolated thing.

But morning's trickish glamour gone,
And evening's pensive languor nigh,
The tasks of eve and morn undone,
I still pursue the butterfly;

Some luring and elusive bliss,
Some flickering wisp whose grasp were vain;
If Heaven but deign to grant me this
What matters lesser creatures' pain?

O dullard! slow to understand
That happiness is vainly chased,
But clutched by selfish, ruthless hand,
The primal impress is effaced.

Then give me back the childhood scene,—
The land of bloom, the sea of sky,
And, wandering o'er his wide demesne,
The tireless, tameless butterfly.

There would I leave him all his own,
Lord of the realm that loves him best,
And I secure would hold my throne,
The monarch of a peaceful breast.





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