#WingedWordsWindsday: A Celebration of Butterflies

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 24: April 12, 2023

 

 

A Celebration of Butterflies!

 

“To a Butterfly” (1801)

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

 

I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;

Self-poised upon that yellow flower

And, little Butterfly! Indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.

How motionless! – not frozen seas

More motionless! And then

What joy awaits you, when the breeze

Hath found you out among the trees,

And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;

My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;

Here rest your wings when they are weary;

Here lodge as in a sanctuary!

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough!

We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days, when we were young;

Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

 

*                                              *                                              *

 

Stay near me – do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

Dead times revive in thee:

Thou brings, gay creature as thou art!

A solemn image to my heart,

My father’s family!

Oh! Pleasant, pleasant were the days,

The time, when, in our childish plays,

My sister Emmeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey: -- with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;

But she, God love her, feared to brush

The dust from off its wings.

 

“A Diet of Worms”

(Anonymous)

 

The caterpillars met one day,

And in a very solemn way

Discussed a point of great import

To all the caterpillar sort.

"Why, as it is," one speaker said,

Up-stretching high a hoary head,

 

"So common is this new caprice

The wise call Metamorphosis,

The change of safe, old-fashioned ground

For silly flights on ways unsound,

That we must take wise measures soon,

Or all our race will be undone."

 

Another spoke: "I like to know

That what one is, he's settled so.

This crawling one day, winged the next,

What prudent worm is not perplexed?

With all these moody changes, who

Will know what form to fasten to?"

 

So after many long debates,

The wise assembly formulates

Its judgment thus: "Whereas," the good

Old ground whereon our fathers stood

Some upstarts are inclined to change

For loftier views and wider range,

Producing dangerous schism thus,

And constantly confusing us,

Be it Resolved, that henceforth we

Who now do covenant and agree,

Maintain ourselves inviolate

In good old caterpillar estate.

And hold as knavish, outcast things

Those rascal heretics with wings."

 

This signed they all with pens that burned,

And then — and then — they all adjourned

For DINNER!

 

“From the Chrysalis”

By Emily Dickinson (1830-1888)

 

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,

I'm feeling for the air;

A dim capacity for wings

Degrades the dress I wear.

 

A power of butterfly must be

The aptitude to fly,

Meadows of majesty concedes

And easy sweeps of sky.

 

So I must baffle at the hint

And cipher at the sign,

And make much blunder, if at last

I take the clew divine.

 

“The Yellow Butterfly”

Excerpted from Carmina Gadelica (1900)

Compiled, Edited, & Translated by Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912)

                There are many kinds of Butterfly, but the kind we speak of is not so plentiful. The true Yellow Butterfly is near half an inch in length, and stouter about the body than any other kind, covered with pretty down or plumage, very small about tail — more so than any other kind under the Sun. The top of his head is like a king’s crown with a fringe around it. His hue is half-way between fine gold and the white snow of the hill. He is always seen in summer, quiet and peaceful, without heat of flurry, above the corpses of infants and of other good people. It is a good sign to see the Yellow Butterfly upon a corpse or near a corpse.

 

Nō robe from Japan (1700s): silk embroidered with silk thread and stenciled with gold foil, including a yellow butterfly. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Butterfly That Stamped”

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Excerpted from the Just So Stories (1902)

                This, O my Best Beloved, is a story — a new and a wonderful story — a story quite different from the other stories — a story about The Most Wise Sovereign Solomon Ben-David — Solomon the Son of David.

                There are three hundred and fifty-five stories about Solomon Ben-David; but this is not one of them. It is not the story of the Lapwing who found the Water; or the Hoopoe who shaded Solomon Ben-David from the heat. It is not the story of the Glass Pavement, or the Ruby with the Crooked Hole, or the Gold Bars of Balkis. It is the story of the Butterfly that Stamped.

                Now attend all over again and listen!

                Solomon Ben-David was wise. He understood what the beasts said, what the birds said, what the fishes said, and what the insects said. He understood what the rocks said deep under the earth when they bowed in towards each other and groaned; and he understood what the trees said when they rustled in the middle of the morning. He understood everything, from the bishop on the bench to the hyssop on the wall, and Balkis, his Head Queen, the Most Beautiful Queen Balkis, was nearly as wise as he was.

 

*                                              *                                              *

 

There was never a Queen like Balkis,

⁠From here to the wide world’s end;

But Balkis talked to a butterfly

⁠As you would talk to a friend.

 

There was never a King like Solomon,

⁠Not since the world began;

But Solomon talked to a butterfly

⁠As a man would talk to a man.

 

She was Queen of Sabaea,

⁠And he was Asia’s Lord,

But they both of them talked to butterflies

⁠When they took their walks abroad!

 

Further Reading on Butterflies

·         https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plan-your-visit/family-of-attractions/butterfly-house à The Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield, MO

·         https://www.themariasibyllameriansociety.humanities.uva.nl/ à The Maria Sibylla Merian Society

 

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was both an accomplished artist and a scientist, becoming the “founding mother” of the science of entomology. She observed, painted, and wrote illustrated reference books about pollinators – especially butterflies and moths. In later life, she participated in a scientific expedition to Suriname to catalog and study its native insect life. Image Credit: Maria as portrayed by Jacob Marrel (1679), Art Museum of Basel, Switzerland.