The Butterfly
O wingèd brother on the harebell, stay--Was God’s hand very pitiful, the handThat wrought thy beauty at a dream’s demand?
Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way,He did not fling me to the world astray--He did not drop me to the weary sand,But bore me gently to a leafy land:Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day.
Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!I will go back now to the world of men.Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,Yet thou hast girded up my heart again;For He that framed the impenetrable plan,And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.
Words in this poem
- harebell n.
- A small, slender, branching plant (Campanula rotundifolia), having blue bell-shaped flowers; also, Scilla nutans, which has similar flowers; -- called also bluebell.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Butterfly is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, The Butterfly, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/the-butterfly.html, id L24760.
Form and metre
The Butterfly is 14 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -AA stay · handA · demandA
- 2 AABBA wayA · astrayA · sandB · landB · dayA
- 3 ABABCC despairA · menB · airA · againB · planC · manC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O wingèd brother on the harebell, stay-- | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Was God’s hand very pitiful, the hand | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| That wrought thy beauty at a dream’s demand? | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way, | 10 | ·/·····/˘· |
| He did not fling me to the world astray-- | 10 | ········˘/ |
| He did not drop me to the weary sand, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But bore me gently to a leafy land: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day. | 10 | /˘········ |
| Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair! | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| I will go back now to the world of men. | 10 | ·········· |
| Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air, | 10 | ·/········ |
| Yet thou hast girded up my heart again; | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| For He that framed the impenetrable plan, | 10 | ·····˘/˘˘· |
| And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man. | 10 | ·········· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.