THE LOST THOUGHTS
Guy de Maupassant, in his last days, believed his thoughts to be fluttering about his head like many-colored butterflies. “Where are my lost thoughts? Who will tell me where to find my thoughts?” he cried to those who tended him.
See! Do you see that wondrous, winged cloud?As if all the garden flowers had taken flightInto the blue air for a holiday,And left their tall green stalks beteared with dew?They are butterflies now, but once I knowThey were my thoughts. I called them when I chose;They came to me in gentle, circling troopsLike fairies tamed by love, and poised uponMy hands, and brushed my cheeks and lips with wingsAs soft as Psyche’s kisses in the dark.There was a white one like an orient pearlSeen in the moonlight; pure and holy asThe Virgin’s white throat in the candle shineOf her high altar—or a young girl’s soul.There was a girl—we two were boy and girlAnd play-mate lovers. I must have caughtThe white wings roughly, for they still are stained.I do forget—but Ah! the silken-brightRed poppy flowers that are red butterflies!My thoughts, my thoughts, shot through with gleaming goldAnd gemmed and jewelled like a Hindu queen,Amber and emerald, ruby and topaz,And charmful jade, and opal’s mystic fire;And richer dyes than Tyre knew in her pride—(My own soul broken to a thousand huesAs light upon a prism—the prism Life.)My wingèd thoughts! My heavenly butterflies!Now they are black, all black, with eyes of fire;I smother in the sable of their wingsThat wrap around me like a velvet pall—I cannot see the sun for their deep eyes—Be merciful! My butterflies! O my lost thoughts!