Classic Poem

Golden to itself it lay,
Its dreams as grains in twinkle-twinkle,
Inward only, to my eyes grey,
Mere cotton, mere butterfly to be.

The time of premonition is thought.
Long before flying, in my thought it flew,
On that day on a tree-side
An old butterfly was new,
Clung wet with fright to its wings.

I blew more fright upon it,
Helped it shudder dry.
Because it could not cry
Stuttering it flew among the vines.
Among the vines my own eyes failed.
" Come away," they said,
" Out of sight is dead."