FROM COCOON FORTH A BUTTERFLY



From cocoon forth a butterfly

As lady from her door

Emerged — a summer afternoon —

Repairing everywhere,



Without design, that I could trace,

Except to stray abroad

On miscellaneous enterprise

The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen

Contracting in a field

Where men made hay, then struggling hard

With an opposing cloud,



Where parties, phantom as herself,

To Nowhere seemed to go

In purposeless circumference,

As ’t were a tropic show.



And notwithstanding bee that worked,

And flower that zealous blew,

This audience of idleness

Disdained them, from the sky,



Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea...







THE BUTTERFLY OBTAINS



The butterfly obtains

But little sympathy,

Though favorably mentioned

In Entomology.

Because he travels freely

And wears a proper coat,

The circumspect are certain

That he is dissolute.

Had he the homely scutcheon of modest Industry,

’I were fitter certifying for Immortality...








TWO BUTTERFLIES WENT OUT AT NOON



Two butterflies went out at noon

And waltzed above a stream,

Then stepped straight through the firmament

And rested on a beam;



And then together bore away

Upon a shining sea,

Though never yet, in any port,

Their coming mentioned be.



If spoken by the distant bird,

If met in ether sea

By frigate or by merchantman,

Report was not to me...))