Crickets beat their
Tambours in the wind;²
Timid Millipedes venture a Tango;³
Fallen blossom returning to
The branch? A Butterfly!⁴
Am I not a Fly like thee?
Or art thou not a man like me?⁵
With Spiders we have friendship made,
And watch’d them in their sullen trade.⁶
We dispense Starlight to casual Moths.⁷
The Gnat’s supremacy is large as thine:⁸
Thou and the Worm are Brother-Kind,
As lowly, as earthly, and as blind—⁹
The Bee that hummeth lowest
Shall transcend you!¹⁰
¹ Mary Ward Brown, The Cure
² Wallace Stevens, The Comedian as the Letter C
³ Denise Levertov, August Daybreak
⁴ Arakida Moritake tr. David LaSpina, Fallen Blossom
⁵ William Blake, The Fly
⁶ Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
⁷ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
⁸ Emily Dickinson, A Toad
⁹ George Sewell, The Dying Man in His Garden
¹⁰ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Drama of Exile