| Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922. | | | | Butterflies |
| | | EYES aloft, over dangerous places, | |
| The children follow the butterflies, | |
| And, in the sweat of their upturned faces, | |
| Slash with a net at the empty skies. | |
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| So it goes they fall amid brambles, | 5 |
| And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, | |
| Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles, | |
| They wipe their brows and the hunting stops. | |
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| Then to quiet them comes their father | |
| And stills the riot of pain and grief, | 10 |
| Saying, “Little ones, go and gather | |
| Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf. | |
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| “You will find on it whorls and clots of | |
| Dull grey eggs that, properly fed, | |
| Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of | 15 |
| Glorious butterflies raised from the dead.”… | |
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| “Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly” | |
| The three-dimensioned preacher saith, | |
| So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie | |
| For Psyche’s birth…. And that is our death! | 20 | | | |
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