Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/188

150 How, slowly, in the dull brown thing

Now still as death, a spotted wing,

And then another, would unfold,

Till from the empty shell would fly

A pretty creature, by and by,

All radiant in blue and gold.

"And will it, truly?" questioned she—

Her laughing lips and eager eyes

All in a sparkle of surprise—

"And shall your little Mädchen see?"

"She shall!" I said. How could I tell

That ere the worm within its shell

Its gauzy, splendid wings had spread,

My little Mädchen would be dead?

To-day the butterfly has flown,—

She was not here to see it fly,—

And sorrowing I wonder why

The empty shell is mine alone.

Perhaps the secret lies in this:

I too had found a chrysalis,

And Death that robbed me of delight

Was but the radiant creature's flight!

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