THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - VOL. 2 (Completed)

TO A BUTTERFLY

Composed March 14, 1802.--Published 1807

[Written in the Orchard, Town-end, Grasmere. My sister and I were parted immediately after the death of our mother, who died in 1778, both being very young.--I. F.]

One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."--Ed.

Stay near me--do not take thy 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 solemn image to my heart, My father's family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, 

The time, when, in our childish plays,

My sister Emmeline [A] 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.

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FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:

In the MS. for the edition of 1807 the transcriber (not W.W.) wrote "Dorothy." This, Wordsworth erased, putting in "Emmeline."--Ed.]

The text of this poem was never changed. It refers to days of childhood spent at Cockermouth before 1778. "My sister Emmeline" is Dorothy Wordsworth. In her Grasmere Journal, of Sunday, March 14, 1802, the following occurs:

"While we were at breakfast he" (William) "wrote the poem 'To a Butterfly'. He ate not a morsel, but sate with his shirt neck unbuttoned, and his waistcoat open when he did it. The thought first came upon him as we were talking about the pleasure we both always felt at the sight of a butterfly. I told him that I used to chase them a little, but that I was afraid of brushing the dust off their wings, and did not catch them. He told me how he used to kill all the white ones when he went to school, because they were Frenchmen. Mr. Simpson came in just as he was finishing the poem. After he was gone, I wrote it down, and the other poems, and I read them all over to him.... William began to try to alter 'The Butterfly', and tired himself."

Compare the later poem 'To a Butterfly' (#2) (April 20), p. 297.--Ed.

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