Eyes aloft, over dangerous places, <br />The children follow the butterflies, <br />And, in the sweat of their upturned faces, <br />Slash with a net at the empty skies. <br /> <br />So it goes they fall amid brambles, <br />And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, <br />Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles, <br />They wipe their brows and the hunting stops. <br /> <br />Then to quiet them comes their father <br />And stills the riot of pain and grief, <br />Saying, "Little ones, go and gather <br />Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf. <br /> <br />"You will find on it whorls and clots of <br />Dull grey eggs that, properly fed, <br />Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of <br />Glorious butterflies raised from the dead." . . . <br /> <br />"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly," <br />The three-dimensioned preacher saith; <br />So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie <br />For Psyche's birth. . . . And that is our death!<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/butterflies-5/
