Poignant Poetry!

One of my goals for the Resolutionary Challenge is to read some great literature every week. This week I read about Wordsworth in one of the precious old books we have.  The front cover is gone but the first page has a handwritten signature that says Constance E. Edwards, September 21st, 1910.  The back padding is beginning to ooze out, but what's inside is so amazing!  William Wordsworth was truly a genius and knew that he was destined to write from the time he was a child. His abilities to observe life around him was remarkable!  The following little poem, which I love, is in a section called Poems Referring to the Period of Childhood

 

To A Butterfly

Stay near me...do not take they flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

Dead times revive in thee:

Thou bring'st gay creature as thou art!

A solemr image to my heart,

My father's family!

 

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,

The time, when , in our childish plays

My sister Emmeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey:---with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;

But she, God love her! feared to brush

The dust from off its wings.

 

I love the imagery of wanting the butterfly to stay near to remind him of his childhood.  Thinking back he remembers that his sister was more tender-hearted than he and knew that rubbing the dust off the wings of a butterfly renders them helpless. Such a metaphor for childhood, looking back as well as forward!  So much in those few little lines!  (plus he's the only person I know who uses more exclamation marks than me!

Thanks Saydi!