Night-Butterflies and Day-Moths. 1 8 5 



" Love's own, 



His wedded love by holiest vow 

 Pledged in Olympus, and made known 

 To mortals by the type which now 

 Hangs glittering on her sunny brow 

 That butterfly, mysterious trinket, 

 Which means the soul (though few would think it)." 



It is a "holiday-rover," "giddy," bent only on enjoyment, 

 " to pleasure ever on the wing." 



1 ' From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly 

 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky." 



So it is "the aimless butterfly" that flits "through ether 

 without aim," "withouten any choice," or that, "fickle as a 

 butterfly-love " 



" doth rejoice 



Every minute to change choice, 

 Counting he were then in bliss, 

 If that each fair of all were his." 



Moreover, singularly enough, the poets seem to resent the 

 butterfly's elevation from the grub-commonalty to the Upper 

 House. The moralists among them see in the meta- 

 morphosis an aspiring mind rewarded by success, or a 

 pious one rising from earthly clods to heavenly heights. 

 But, as a rule, it is remembered unkindly against the 

 charming insect that it should have had such lowly origin, 

 the intermediate refining stage of chrysalis-tranquillity not- 

 withstanding. So, as the butterfly is born of the caterpillar, 

 "to Goody Maggot near allied," and as those "reptiles," 

 as poets call them, are (poetically) supposed to be en- 

 gendered from corruption, the butterfly is a courtier-insect 

 which is the outcome of a rotten society. In this character 

 it perpetually recurs in verse. Again, inasmuch as the 

 grubbing, toiling caterpillar may be imagined as having 

 laid the foundation for the pleasures which the winged 

 thing possesses, and which it so prodigally enjoys, it affords 

 a simile for a spendthrift heir. 



