Book of verses / Edgar Lee Masters [electronic text]

TO A MOTH

SOFT phantom of the summer eventide, From bowers of odorous dusk, thy noiseless wings Were closed in slumber when the daylight died In some rose garden where the cricket sings; Round whom spent petals charged with summer fell The lovliest harvest of all lovely things.

Wherein, until the full moon's gorgeous spell Awoke nocturnal music in the grass, And in the shuddering trees, that haunted dellOf flowering bushes, and a fragrant mass Of leaves and tendrils, sheltered thy repose. Whence thou did'st flit to thy fierce fate, alas! Here in my lamp, whose bright allurance glows, A treacherous beacon, beaming out afar, As if it were thy soul's abiding star.Like some full blossom driven by the breeze,

From twilight and the regions of the West, Lit by dim stars, as if untraveled seas Beneath stood tideless in unchanging rest; Or, as if Egypt's level waste of sand Lay in submission of the Sphynx's breast, Their eyes, these stars; thy mottled wings had fanned, O'er flowery lawns, the balmy air between. Eager and palpitant to reach the brand Which was thy doom; as one who scorns the mean 'Twixt earth and heaven, lifting far too high His love unquenchable and ever keen

To some cold flame fixed in the windless sky; It was with thee e'en as with us who yearn For raster visions, and whose spirits burn.

The risen moon floods valley, hill, and plain With crystalline splendor, and the trees show clear; Yet thou art still from that brief fit of pain, Dead ere the summer, which made living dear.Through flame, the sepulcher from fabled eld, Of genius and of love, and all who wear

The robe of beauty, and whose spirits held Converse with heaven;—miracle of hues, The rapt intelligence which once propelled Thy peacock pinions through the falling dews, Slipped to a sleep whereof this summer's dream Is its dim dream, whose memories interfuse,Of fragrant ways and glassy star-lit stream With frailer dreams, until thy fancied flight Glimmers away in some unvisioned night.

Yet it is beautiful to perish so; Ere the bright velvet of thy wings was marred; Ere leaves do fall and frosty breezes blow. How sorrowful upon some lifeless sward, I had beheld thee, lying stiff and dumb, The cold dew on thy wings. Like some great bard, Who, living past his time of song, grows dumb, And still the figure of a perished past Mutters of triumphs in a time to come.But thou, like those whose requiem was a blast, Of deathless music quickening the pyre, Hast won death so, while every mead is grassed,

Tender and green, thy being's rapt desire.Teach us that youth and genius brave his breath,And grow immortal at the kiss of death!