Lines to a Butterfly Resting on a Skull

Creature of air and light!
Emblem of that which will not fade or die!
Wilt thou not speed thy flight,
To chase the south wind through the glowing sky?
What lures thee thus to stay
With silence and decay,
Fix’d on the wreck of cold mortality?

The thoughts once chamber’d there,
Have gather’d up their treasures and are gone;--
Will the dust tell thee where
That which hath burst the prison-house is flown?
Rise, nursling of the day!
If thou wouldst trace its way--
Earth has no voice to make the secret known.

Who seeks the vanish’d bird
Near the deserted nest and broken shell?
Far thence, by us unheard,
He sings, rejoicing in the woods to dwell:
Thou of the sunshine born,
Take the bright wings of morn!
Thy hope springs heavenward from yon ruin’d cell.