Felicia Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 30 1831/To a Butterfly near a Tomb
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 30, Page 530
TO A BUTTERFLY NEAR A TOMB,
BY MRS HEMANS.
I stood where the lip of Song lay low,
Where the dust was heavy on Beauty's brow;
Where stillness hung on the heart of Love,
And a marble weeper kept watch above.
I stood in the silence of lonely thought,
While Song and Love in my own soul wrought;
Though each unwhisper'd, each dimm'd with fear,
Each but a banish'd spirit here.
Then didst thou pass me in radiance by,
Child of the Sunshine, young Butterfly!
Thou that dost bear, on thy fairy wing,
No burden of inborn suffering!
Thou wert flitting past that solemn tomb,
Over a bright world of joy and bloom;
And strangely I felt, as I saw thee shine,
The all that sever'd thy life and mine.
Mine, with its hidden mysterious things,
Of Love and Grief, its unsounded springs,
And quick thoughts, wandering o'er earth and sky,
With voices to question Eternity!
Thine, on its reckless and glancing way,
Like an embodied breeze at play!
Child of the Sunshine, thou wing'd and free,
One moment—one moment—I envied thee!
Thou art not lonely, though born to roam,
Thou hast no longings that pine for home;
Thou seek'st not the haunts of the bee and bird,
To fly from the sickness of Hope deferr'd.
In thy brief being no strife of mind,
No boundless passion, is deeply shrined;
But I—as I gazed on thy swift flight by,
One hour of my soul seem’d Infinity!
Yet, ere I turned from that silent place,
Or ceased from watching thy joyous race,
Thou, even Thou, on those airy wings,
Didst waft me visions of brighter things!
Thou, that dost image the freed soul's birth,
And its flight away o'er the mists of earth,
Oh! fitly Thou shinest mid flowers that rise
Round the dark chamber where Genius lies!