Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/The caterpillar
THE CATERPILLAR.
Draw thy tender rings behind thee, overtop that spear of grass,
Slowly browse across the leaf here, slowly browse and slowly pass.
O, what thrilling loves await thee! O, what wealth of purple wings!
Yea, the air shall be thy kingdom! thou shalt sip celestial springs!
Blind as th’ first of all thy race was to thy fate, thou wendest on:
I can fuse thy past, thy present, and thy future into one!
Yea, my kinship to th’ Eternal thou revealest in my thought,
And the days of time are swallowed in the day where time is not.
I, a prophet, gaze upon thee, deep self-awe is in my heart,
I can look from what thou shalt be back to what this eve thou art.
Is there One, from heights of wisdom, looking down this eve on me,
Turning at this moment to me from the being I shall be?
Walter Alfred Hills.