TO THE BUTTERFLY.Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,Mingling with her thou lov’st in fields of light;And, where the flowers of paradise unfold,Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky,Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!—Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that creptOn the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept!And such is man; soon from his cell of clayTo burst a seraph in the blaze of day!
Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,Mingling with her thou lov’st in fields of light;And, where the flowers of paradise unfold,Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky,Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!—Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that creptOn the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept!And such is man; soon from his cell of clayTo burst a seraph in the blaze of day!