StoryTitle("caps", "A Chrysalis") ?>
Chrysalis" is a favourite poem with John Burroughs, and is
found, too, in Stedman's collection. We all come to a point in life
where we need to burst the shell and fly away
into the new realm. (1835-98.)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My little Mädchen found one day", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A curious something in her play,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That was not fruit, nor flower, nor seed;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It was not anything that grew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Or crept, or climbed, or swam, or flew;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Had neither legs nor wings, indeed;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And yet she was not sure, she said,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whether it was alive or dead.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She brought it in her tiny hand", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To see if I would understand,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And wondered when I made reply,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"You've found a baby butterfly.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"A butterfly is not like this,\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With doubtful look she answered me.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So then I told her what would be", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Some day within the chrysalis:", "") ?>
PagePoem(150, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How, slowly, in the dull brown thing", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Now still as death, a spotted wing,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And then another, would unfold,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till from the empty shell would fly", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A pretty creature, by and by,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All radiant in blue and gold.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"And will it, truly?\" questioned she—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Her laughing lips and eager eyes", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All in a sparkle of surprise—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"And shall your little Mädchen see?\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"She shall!\" I said. How could I tell", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That ere the worm within its shell", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Its gauzy, splendid wings had spread,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "My little Mädchen would be dead?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To-day the butterfly has flown,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She was not here to see it fly,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And sorrowing I wonder why", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The empty shell is mine alone.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Perhaps the secret lies in this:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I too had found a chrysalis,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And Death that robbed me of delight", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was but the radiant creature's flight!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Mary Emily Bradley.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>