The Butterflies of Poetry
We weep not that the fitful flit and glitter1
Of rainbow butterflies the Spring releases2
Must cease when every other sweetness ceases :3
Free delicate life and death for joy seem fitter4
To toilers in the trammels of the city,5
Than grief, than pity.6
But when, with fading bloom and pinions trailing7
These butterflies go haltingly and broken,8
With mud and dust upon their wings for token9
On what harsh wheel their fragile lives are failing,—10
Disfigured by the torture of the city,—11
Ah God,—the pity !12
They knew no Spring, too quickly hurt to dying,13
For them the gateway is too strait and lowly14
That leads to Springs more exquisite and holy....15
Yet shining walls of crystal overflying16
May they not reach at last the golden city ?17
O God,—have pity !18