The Butterfly Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJKJ HDHD LMLM NCNC OPQP CRCR LSLS TUTU VLVL WAWA OXOI YZYZ AA2AA2 B2C2B2C2 D2E2D2E2| I watched to day a butterfly | A |
| With gorgeous wings of golden sheen | B |
| Flit lightly 'neath a sapphire sky | A |
| Amid the springtime's tender green | B |
| - | |
| A creature so divinely fair | C |
| So frail so wraithlike to the sight | D |
| I feared to see it melt in air | C |
| As clouds dissolve in morning light | D |
| - | |
| With sudden swoop a brutal boy | E |
| Caught in his cap its fans of gold | F |
| And forced them down with savage joy | E |
| Upon the path's defiling mould | F |
| - | |
| Then cautiously the ground well scanned | G |
| He clutched his darkened helpless prey | H |
| And pinched within his grimy hand | G |
| Withdrew it to the light of day | H |
| - | |
| Alas its fragile bloom was gone | I |
| Its gracile frame was sorely hurt | J |
| Its silken pinions drooped forlorn | K |
| Disfigured by the dust and dirt | J |
| - | |
| Its life a moment since so gay | H |
| So joyous in its dainty flight | D |
| Was slowly ebbing now away | H |
| Its too brief day eclipsed by night | D |
| - | |
| Meantime the vandal face aflame | L |
| Surveyed it dying in his grasp | M |
| Yet knew no grief nor sense of shame | L |
| In watching for its final gasp | M |
| - | |
| At last its sails of gold and brown | N |
| Of texture fine and colors rare | C |
| Came death struck slowly fluttering down | N |
| No more to cleave the sunlit air | C |
| - | |
| One happy harmless being less | O |
| To bid us dream the world is sweet | P |
| Gone like a gleam of happiness | Q |
| A glimpse of rapture incomplete | P |
| - | |
| Yet who shall say this creature fair | C |
| In God's sight had a smaller worth | R |
| Than that dull lout who watched it there | C |
| And in its death found cause for mirth | R |
| - | |
| For what in truth are we who claim | L |
| An endless life beyond the grave | S |
| But insects of a larger frame | L |
| Whose souls may be too small to save | S |
| - | |
| Since far off times when Cave Men fought | T |
| Like famished brutes for bloody food | U |
| And through unnumbered centuries sought | T |
| To rear their naked whelp like brood | U |
| - | |
| How many million men have died | V |
| From pole to pole through every clime | L |
| An awful never ending tide | V |
| Swept deathward on the shores of Time | L |
| - | |
| Like insects swarming in the sun | W |
| They flutter struggle mate and die | A |
| And with their life work scarce begun | W |
| Are struck down like the butterfly | A |
| - | |
| A million more a million less | O |
| What matters it The Earth rolls on | X |
| Unmindful of mankind's distress | O |
| Or if the race be here or gone | I |
| - | |
| Thus rolled our globe ere man appeared | Y |
| And thus will roll with wrinkled crust | Z |
| Deserted lifeless old and seared | Y |
| When man shall have returned to dust | Z |
| - | |
| And IT at last shall also die | A |
| Hence measured by the eternal scale | A2 |
| It ranks but as the butterfly | A |
| A world ephemeral fair and frail | A2 |
| - | |
| Man insect earth or distant star | B2 |
| They differ only in degree | C2 |
| Their transient lives or near or far | B2 |
| Are moments in eternity | C2 |
| - | |
| Yet somehow to my spirit clings | D2 |
| The faith that man survives the sod | E2 |
| For this poor insect's broken wings | D2 |
| Have raised my thoughts from earth to God | E2 |
John L. Stoddard
(1)
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