When the whole sky is vestured silken blue With not one fleece to view, Drown your deep eyes afar, and see you must How the light azure dust And speckled atoms of the polished skies Are large blue butterflies. The proof? Lie in a field on heavy noons, When Nature drones and croons And on man's distant cry or dog's far bark Hush sets the instant mark, Look up: when nothing earthly stirs or sings You hear them wave their wings, And watch the breeze their vanity awakes Light on the heavenly lakes. But when the shades before the sun's huge fall In sham retreat grow tall, Their ambushed allies, the impatient stars, Make ready for bright wars, And shoot ten million arrows to chastise The tardy butterflies Who dive in hosts toward the diving sphere That holds the light's frontier, And the poor vanquished, turning as they glide, Show their gold underside. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WORDS INTO WORDS WON'T GO by CLARENCE MAJOR VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 9. VILLA SEBELLONI, BELLAGGIO by SARA TEASDALE QUIET WORK; SONNET by MATTHEW ARNOLD SONG FOR THE LUDDITES by GEORGE GORDON BYRON A PRAYER IN SPRING by ROBERT FROST A LAST PRAYER by HELEN MARIA HUNT FISKE JACKSON |