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.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,

And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,

Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,

They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father

And stills the riot of pain and grief,

Saying, “Little ones, go and gather

Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

“You will find on it whorls and clots of

Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,

Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of

Glorious butterflies raised from the dead.”…

“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!