Waking, I saw a jewelled butterfly,
In eager dance against my casement pane,
Quarter the glass again and yet again,
Beating to dust his golden panoply.
When that day's sun was down again came I,
Still the poor dancer leapt and still in vain,
And yet day long his unclosed path had lain,
Just round the bar there, to the open sky.
Roused by those wings, immortal fears that wait
On mortal men woke in me, and I gazed
Affrightedly across now twilit fields
Where in broad day I'd laboured unamazed;
Happy in earth's increase, sure of life's yields,
Blind Chance forgot - Blind Chance? Or bleak-eyed Fate?