A Butterfly on a child's grave

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

A butterfly basked on a baby's grave,

Where a lily had chanced to grow :

"Why art thou here, with thy gaudy dye,

When she of the blue and sparkling eye

Must sleep in the churchyard low?"

Then it lightly soared through the sunny air,

And spoke from its shining track :

"I was a worm till I won my wings,

And she whom thou mournest, like a seraph sings.

Wouldst thou call the blest one back?"