Poetry & Analysis
Selected Butterfly Poems
Animal PoemsA Little Wind
When I lay down
In a clover place,
With eyelids closed,
In a clover place,
A little wind came to my face.
One gentle wind
Blew on my mouth,
And I said, “It will quiver by.
What little wind now can it be?”
And I lay still
Where the clovers were.
But when I raised my lids to see,
Then it was a butterfly.
Overview Short Summary
“A Little Wind” turns the touch of a butterfly into a breeze felt on the face.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Gentle encounter: The butterfly is felt before it is seen.
- Childlike surprise: The speaker discovers that the “wind” was a butterfly.
- Nature intimacy: The poem takes place close to clover and earth.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is soft, quiet, and surprised. The mood is peaceful and tender.
Interpretation Animal Symbolism
The butterfly symbolizes delicate presence, the lightness of nature, and the surprise of small beauty.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The speaker lies with eyes closed in clover and feels a little wind.
Stanza 2
The speaker wonders what gentle wind touched the mouth.
Final Line
Opening the eyes reveals that the wind was a butterfly.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses clover, eyelids, face, mouth, wind, stillness, and butterfly imagery. Personification is subtle; the butterfly’s touch becomes windlike.
Craft Literary Devices
- Surprise ending: The final line reveals the butterfly.
- Sensory imagery: Touch is more important than sight.
- Repetition: “In a clover place” creates softness.
- Metaphor: The butterfly becomes a little wind.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses free verse with short lines. Its structure preserves the quiet surprise of discovery.
Butterfly, Lend Me Your Wings, I Pray
Butterfly, lend me your wings, I pray,
Lend me your wings for a golden day,
I would fly over the bush and tree,
Over the children that play with me.
The butterfly lent me his wings, but I
Stayed right on the ground—I could not fly;
My feet were heavy, my head would fall,
Butterfly, I cannot fly at all!
Butterfly, butterfly, take your wings,
I must go walking like other things,
Butterfly, take back your wings again,
And I shall run after you through the glen.
Overview Short Summary
This poem imagines borrowing a butterfly’s wings and then learning that humans must move in their own way.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Desire to fly: The child wants butterfly freedom.
- Self-acceptance: The speaker realizes borrowed wings do not fit.
- Play: The poem ends with running after the butterfly instead of becoming one.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is playful and imaginative. The mood is cheerful because the failed flight becomes another kind of play.
Interpretation Animal Symbolism
The butterfly symbolizes freedom, lightness, and a form of beauty humans can admire but not possess.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The speaker asks to borrow the butterfly’s wings for a golden day.
Stanza 2
Even with wings, the speaker cannot fly because the human body is heavy.
Stanza 3
The speaker returns the wings and accepts walking and running after the butterfly.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses wings, golden day, bush, tree, children, ground, feet, and glen imagery. Personification appears when the butterfly lends its wings.
Craft Literary Devices
- Apostrophe: The speaker addresses the butterfly.
- Fantasy: Borrowed wings create imaginative play.
- Contrast: Flying contrasts with walking.
- Moral lesson: The poem gently teaches self-acceptance.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses three rhymed quatrains with a simple child-friendly rhythm.
Butterflies
A purple haze hangs hotly o’er the hills;
The bees’ low chant falls murmuring on the ear;
Bright butterflies flit by, now far, now near,
Yielding to gay caprice their fickle wills.
Their rainbow hues are yet bedewed with morn.
On wings all jewel-decked they move elate,
A beamy brilliancy irradiate,
Winding a wavy path unknown of thorn.
They find the chalice of the trumpet-vine;
And fold their wings of gossamer; alight,
Sipping a moment as a fairy might;
Then soft away, in quest of sweeter wine.
And thus they win the balm of every flower,
Wantonly gypsying in revelry—
Not burden-bearing like the groaning bee—
Bacchantes all—their life a golden hour.
Overview Short Summary
Ruby Archer’s “Butterflies” is a richly colored poem about butterflies moving through summer heat, flowers, and light.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Beauty: The butterflies are jewel-decked and rainbow-colored.
- Freedom: They follow “gay caprice” and wander without burden.
- Flower life: Trumpet-vine, balm, and sweetness shape the poem.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is lush, musical, and sensuous. The mood is warm and golden.
Interpretation Animal Symbolism
The butterflies symbolize unburdened beauty, brief pleasure, and summer’s wandering joy.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The poem begins in hot purple haze with bees chanting and butterflies flitting.
Stanza 2
Their rainbow wings shine with morning dew and jewel-like light.
Stanza 3
The butterflies sip from trumpet-vine and move away softly.
Stanza 4
The poem contrasts butterfly revelry with the burden-bearing bee.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses purple haze, bee chant, rainbow hues, jewels, gossamer wings, trumpet-vine, wine, balm, and golden hour imagery.
Craft Literary Devices
- Imagery: Color, sound, and flower images dominate the poem.
- Metaphor: Flowers become chalices, nectar becomes wine.
- Contrast: Butterflies are unburdened while bees carry labor.
- Alliteration: “Winding a wavy path” echoes the flight pattern.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses four rhymed quatrains. Its structure follows butterflies through atmosphere, color, feeding, and symbolic reflection.
Butterfly Adventure
I saw a butterfly
Dark-brown and dusty
Like a plain traveler.
But when the sun shone on him
He wore sapphire-blue and opal
And winking half-moons of gold powder. . .
All the brown vanished away!
How could I know
He was iridescent?
Nature seems to hide
When you look at her with sleepy eyes,
But with eyes wide-open in the open light
You see her shine to all the colors
Of the sun.
Overview Short Summary
“Butterfly Adventure” shows how ordinary-looking nature can become radiant when seen in full light.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Hidden beauty: The butterfly changes from brown and dusty to sapphire, opal, and gold.
- Awareness: The poem teaches the importance of truly seeing.
- Nature’s surprise: Light reveals what sleepy eyes miss.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is amazed and childlike. The mood is bright because discovery turns plainness into color.
Interpretation Animal Symbolism
The butterfly symbolizes hidden beauty and the need for open-eyed attention to see the world fully.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The speaker first sees a plain, dusty brown butterfly, then sunlight reveals sapphire, opal, and gold.
Stanza 2
The poem reflects that nature hides from sleepy eyes but shines when viewed in open light.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses images of brown dust, traveler, sunlight, sapphire-blue, opal, gold powder, open eyes, and the colors of the sun. Personification appears when nature seems to hide.
Craft Literary Devices
- Simile: The butterfly is like a plain traveler.
- Color imagery: Sapphire, opal, and gold create a jewel-like transformation.
- Personification: Nature hides and shines.
- Moral insight: The poem teaches attentive seeing.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses free verse with two movements: visual discovery and reflective lesson.
My Butterfly
Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.
The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago—
It seems forever—
Since first I saw thee flance,
With all the dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.
When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.
Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.
And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Snatched thee, o’er eager, with ungentle grasp.
Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracty was rife
Against my life—
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!
Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!
I found that wing broken to-day!
For thou art dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.
Overview Short Summary
Robert Frost’s “My Butterfly” is an elegiac butterfly poem about memory, death, beauty, and the discovery of a broken wing.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Memory: The speaker remembers the butterfly’s earlier beauty and motion.
- Death and loss: The broken wing becomes a sign of mortality.
- Beauty and fragility: The butterfly’s dance is vivid but temporary.
- Love and regret: The poem has a mournful emotional attachment to the butterfly.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is elegiac, reflective, and sorrowful. The mood is wistful because the living butterfly is remembered through a dead wing.
Interpretation Animal Symbolism
The butterfly symbolizes fragile beauty, the passing of joy, and memory sharpened by loss.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Opening Section
The speaker stands almost alone as the one who mourns the butterfly in the fields.
Memory Section
The poem remembers the butterfly among others in airy, dizzying motion.
Reflection Section
The speaker imagines the butterfly as made for the wind and caught in forces beyond itself.
Closing Section
The discovery of the broken wing under the eaves confirms the butterfly’s death and turns memory into elegy.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses images of dead flowers, gray grass, riverbanks, aerial dance, fairy wreath, breeze, odors, gem-flower, dye-dusty wing, withered leaves, and eaves.
Craft Literary Devices
- Elegy: The poem mourns a dead butterfly.
- Simile: The butterfly’s motion is like a rose-wreath in a fairy dance.
- Imagery: Wing, wind, grass, and withered leaves create a delicate scene.
- Personification: Fate and wind shape the butterfly’s life.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses irregular lyric stanzas with a reflective narrative movement from mourning to memory to the broken wing.
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