The Dragonfly

The dragonfly blue’s all the fashion
In beetle-land, in the present day;
The butterflies their addresses pay
To the beauty with amorous passion.

Her hips are excessively slender,
She wears a gauze dress of delicate hue,
With very symmetrical movements too
She flutters about in splendour.

Her colour’d admirers hover
In her train, and many a young gallant
Thus swears: “I’ll Holland give, and Brabant
“If thou wilt be my lover.”

She answers (but how insincerely!):
“Brabant and Holland are nothing to me,
“I want but a spark of light, to see
“In my little chamber clearly.”

When she imposes this duty,
Her lovers hasten to join in the race,
And eagerly seek, from place to place,
A spark of light for the beauty.

As soon as one sees a taper,
He blindly rushes on to his doom,
And the cruel flames the victim consume,
And his loving heart, like paper.

* * * * *

It comes from Japan, this fable,
Yet even in Germany, my dear child,
Are plenty of dragonflies, devilish wild,
Perfidious, and unstable.