Poems (Prescott)/A Fantasia

by Mary Newmarch Prescott

FANTASIA

Once, in a garden quite secluded,
Over which the sunbeams brooded,
By the breath of roses haunted.
Where the hollyhocks were planted,
 Reigned a swarm of butterflies.
All the place was their dominion,
Sporting there on snowy pinion;
 Underneath the summer skies;
For they had no thought of sorrow,
Knew they got the way to borrow
 Trouble from a dim surmise.
Sooth, the rose was their pavilion,
Where they danced a weird cotillon,
And the tulip's rich vermilion
 Served for royal draperies;
And the great blue garden-spiders
Were their coachmen and outriders,
 Just according to their size.
All the winds were sweet with clover,
 And the bees hummed everywhere,
While the nightingale sang over
 Every eve his love-lorn air;
Never were there wingèd mortals
 Happier than these butterflies,
Once they burst their silken portals
 Into this warm paradise.
And they spoke unto each other—
 "All this pleasant world is ours.
Straight descended through our mother
 All these fountains, all these flowers,
All these dew-delighted grasses,
Over which the sunlight passes,
 Over which the twilight lowers."
No one answered, "Sweet, my brothers,
Unto us, and to no others;
 Do you think the world belongs?
Just across the wall there truly
 Where the cabbage-plants are set,
In the kitchen-garden duly
 We were born; you quite forget,
When, as little worms, we crept
 Up the mossy-scented wall;
Wove our cradles soft, and slept
 Just within the robin's call;
Till one day we burst our fetters,
 Glad to know ourselves on wing
And stole out among our betters,
 Finding life a different thing!"