Famous Butterflies Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Butterflies poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous butterflies poems. These examples illustrate what a famous butterflies poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Oscar Wilde
Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;
Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.
Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.
Then to the tall trees they...Read more of this...
by
William Henry Davies
I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick --
But not one like the child did pick.
I heard the packhounds in green park --
But no dog like the child heard bark.
I heard this day bird after bird --
But not one like the child has heard.
A hundred butterflies saw I --
But not one like the child saw...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
(A Poem Game.)
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
Now orders forth his men.
He says "The time is almost here
When violets bloom again."
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
A down the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
They shiver by the...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
Your lips are like a southern lily red,
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,
In which the brown bee buries deep its head,
When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.
Your lips betray the secret of your soul,
The dark delicious essence that is you,
A mystery of life, the flaming goal
I seek through...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.
What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit's cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,
Its crystals a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered...Read more of this...
by
Gregory Corso
Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desparate gun...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Frail Travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers;
O living flowers against the heedless blue
Of summer days, what sends them dancing through
This fiery-blossom’d revel of the hours?
Theirs are the musing silences between
The enraptured crying of shrill birds that make
Heaven in the wood while summer dawns awake;
And theirs the faintest winds that hush the green.
And...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Two butterflies went out at Noon --
And waltzed upon a Farm --
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested, on a Beam --
And then -- together bore away
Upon a shining Sea --
Though never yet, in any Port --
Their coming, mentioned -- be --
If spoken by the distant Bird --
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman --
No notice --...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals...Read more of this...
by
Arthur Symons
I have loved colours, and not flowers;
Their motion, not the swallows wings;
And wasted more than half my hours
Without the comradeship of things.
How is it, now, that I can see,
With love and wonder and delight,
The children of the hedge and tree,
The little lords of day and night?
How is it that I see the roads,...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
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...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
Some gentlemen are floating in the meadow over
the yellow grass.
They seem to hover by those wonderful blue
little flowers that grow there by those rocks.
Perhaps they have floated up from that nearby
graveyard?
They drift a little when the wind blows.
Butterflies flutter through them . . ....Read more of this...
by
Jack Prelutsky
"My stomach's full of butterflies!"
lamented Dora Diller.
Her mother sighed. "That's no surprise,
you ate a caterpillar!"...Read more of this...
by
Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)
To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
With one consuming roar along the shingle
The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles down
To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,
A mounting arch of water weedy-brown
Against the tide the off-shore breezes blow.
Oh wind and water, this is Felixstowe.
In winter when the sea winds chill and shriller
Than those of summer, all their cold unload
Full on the gimcrack attic...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Huangsi girl house flowers fill path Thousand blossom ten thousand blossom press branch low Reluctant to leave play butterfly constantly dance Free and unrestrained lovely oriole cry At Huang Si's house, flowers fill the path, Myriad blossoms press the branches low. Constantly dancing butterflies stay to play, Unrestrained, the lovely orioles cry....Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.")
{Bk. I. xii.}
The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses—lo, the little lovers—
That kiss the buds and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings
That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Hapcot! To thee the Fairy State
I with discretion, dedicate.
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious, and un-familiar.
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We'll see the Fairy Court anon.
A little mushroon table spread,
After short prayers, they set on bread;
A moon-parched grain of purest wheat,
With some small glit'ring grit, to eat
His choice...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
What would I give to see his face?
I'd give -- I'd give my life -- of course --
But that is not enough!
Stop just a minute -- let me think!
I'd give my biggest Bobolink!
That makes two -- Him -- and Life!
You know who "June" is --
I'd give her --
Roses a day from Zanzibar --
And Lily tubes -- like Wells --
Bees...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
As far from pity, as complaint --
As cool to speech -- as stone --
As numb to Revelation
As if my Trade were Bone --
As far from time -- as History --
As near yourself -- Today --
As Children, to the Rainbow's scarf --
Or Sunset's Yellow play
To eyelids in the Sepulchre --
How dumb the Dancer lies --
While Color's Revelations break --
And blaze...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Roses et Papillons.")
{XXVII., Dec. 7, 1834.}
The grave receives us all:
Ye butterflies and roses gay and sweet
Why do ye linger, say?
Will ye not dwell together as is meet?
Somewhere high in the air
Would thy wing seek a home 'mid sunny skies,
In mead or mossy...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
[How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition]
The Old Horse in the City
The moon's a peck of corn. It lies
Heaped up for me to eat.
I wish that I might climb the path
And taste that supper sweet.
Men feed me straw and scanty...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Under what withering leprous light
The very grass as hair is grey,
Grass in the cracks of the paven courts
Of gods we graved but yesterday.
Senate, republic, empire, all
We leaned our backs on like a wall
And blessed as stron as strong and blamed as stolid--
Can it be these that waver and fall?
And what is this like a ghost returning,
A dream grown strong...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
The vivid grass with visible delight
Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth,
The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight
Chirping and dancing for the season's birth,
The dandelions and rare daffodils
That touch the deep-stirred heart with hands of gold,
The thrushes sending forth their joyous trills,--
Not these, not these did I at first behold!
But seated on...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Butterflies poems.