Page:Morning-Glories and Other Stories.djvu/208

My fairy form passed quite away;
   Alas! I'd gladly die,
For 'tis my punishment to be
   A wandering firefly.
Ah! now I long for all I've lost:
   My mates are flown away;
The birds and bees I pine to see,
   But cannot seek by day.
I haunt the flowers all the night.
   Hoping a home to win,—
The doors are shut: all are asleep:
   I knock; none let me in.
I'm tired of the friends I made;
   I hate the teasing gnat,
The hooting owl, the cricket shrill.
   The beetle, and the bat.
My only mates are the poor moths;
   They seek and love the light.
Though they, like me, sleep all day long,
   And only fly by night
Once they were butterflies, you know,
   And floated in the sun;
But they are doomed to expiate
   The wrongs which they have done,
By madly longing for the shine
   That blinds their feeble eye,
Yet draws them, like a dreadful spell,
   To flutter, burn, and die.
O little child! be warned in time;
   Guard well your bosom spark,
Else it will slowly fade away,
   And leave you in the dark.
Feed it with all things fair and good:
   Then gloomy clouds may roll,
But cannot shadow in your life,—
   Tis sunshine of the soul.