Poems (Hoffman)/The Butterfly
THE BUTTERFLY
Butterfly, butterfly, where are you going?Do you dine today with the regal roseOr nectar sip with the lilies blowingIn the golden noontide's sweet repose? Away, away, on silken pinions, Gay guest of Flora's proudest minions.
Or will you pause midst the fragrant cloverAnd their humbler viands not despise,While the proud tuberoses wait their loverAnd the pansies smile from their velvet eyes? Away, away, on dainty pinions Gay guest in Flora's fair dominions.
Butterfly, butterfly, praised and pettedWelcomed and feasted and loved by all,Say have you ever yet regrettedThat an humble worm you learned to crawl You who soar on sun-dyed pinions With bees and blossoms for companions?
O, like the worm we must aspireTo a higher flight and a lovelier guise,If on unseen wings we mount up higherAnd from a worm of the dust arise, A full-fledged wonderful new creation On the pinions of noble aspiration!
O, like the worm we must repairFrom the coarse low things of the worm's delightAnd wind our souls in the shreds of prayerAnd fashion us wings for an endless flight; Then bursting forth from our chrysalis Taste the sweets of the highest happiness!