Butterfly Poems

[Pete Eeles]

Given the slow start to the season, the contributions from Bryan H last year (see http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB2/v ... poem#p6201 for an example!), and a suggestion from Lynn Fomison, I've decided to start a thread on butterfly-related poems

My contribution is the result of seeing Spike Milligan on (I believe) Parkinson, many years ago, where he recited the following, which was simply awesome since the audience was expecting something funny - it really showed a different side to the great man:

This evening in the twilight’s gloom
A butterfly flew in my room
Oh what beauty, oh what grace
Who needs visitors from outer space?

Cheers,

- Pete

[Lynn]

In June 2006 I visited the Isle of Wight with a few butterfly friends. We stayed at a country house in St Laurence which had been the home of Alfred Noyes and his family still lived there. So you wonder who was Alfred Noyes. Well if you had to learn poems at school you might remember …

The Highwayman

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding
Riding riding
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

No butterflies in that one though, but I just love the description of Painted Lady in his poem ‘The Butterfly Garden’ It comes to my mind every time I see the wonderful pictures of PL’s all you guys take. So here it is and lets hope it encourages PL’s to arrive

The Butterfly Garden

Here, by this crumbling wall
We’ll spread the feast, then watch what guests it brings.
Earth rooted flowers to flowers of heaven shall call,
And all the gorgeous air shall wink with wings.

We’ll choose what they love most
As all men must whose guests are of the sky:
Not lavender, of lost gardens the sweet ghost;
But heliotrope, young Psyche’s cherry pie.

Be sure she does not pine
For any phantom feast, that heavenly Maid!
‘Tis we that make a wraith of things divine
And think the very soul into a shade.

The Chilean orange-ball
First of the shrubs that Tortoiseshells prefer.
Must hang its honeyed clusters over all
And tempt the freckled blues to flutter near;

With globes of fragrant gold
Luring the Green-veined White from near & far
While faultless Painted Ladies here unfold
Their pearly fans, inlaid with moon and star;

Till later buddleias trail
Their long racemes of violet and rose,
Round which the glorious Admirals dip and sail,
And swarthy Peacocks flit and sip and doze.

Hedging them closely round
Veronica must spread her spikes of blue,
That sun and flowers may in one sleep be drowned
Yet keep her own Fritillaries fluttering too.

Blue is their hearts delight,
Therefore, though crimson petals also please,
And soft white wings will sail to bridal white
Like yachts with orange tips on blossoming seas.

We’ll make them doubly blest
With this, the deepening blue of children’s eyes;
For winged creatures love that colour best,
Which smiled upon them, once, in Paradise.
Alfred Noyes

Sorry this does not match the wit of Peter’s contribution from Spike Milligan but – it’s a pretty good recipe for a butterfly garden.

[Lynn]

ALL THESE I LEARNT
BY ROBERT BYRON
If I have a son, he shall salute the lords and ladies who unfurl green hoods to the March rains, and shall know them afterwards by their scarlet fruit.
He shall know the celandine, and the frigid, sightless flowers of the woods, spurge and spurge laurel, dogs’ mercury, wood- sorrel and queer four-leaved herb-paris fit to trim a bonnet with its purple dot.
He shall see the marshes gold with flags and kingcups and find shepherd’s purse on a slag-heap.
He shall know the tree-flowers, scented lime-tassels, blood- pink larch-tufts, white strands of the Spanish chestnut and tattered oak- plumes.
He shall know orchids, mauve-winged bees and claret-coloured flies climbing up from mottled leaves.
He shall see June red and white with ragged robin and cow parsley and the two campions.
He shall tell a dandelion from sow thistle or goat’s beard. He shall know the field flowers, lady’s bedstraw and lady’s slipper, purple mallow, blue chicory and the cranesbills - dusky, bloody, and blue as heaven.
In the cool summer wind he shall listen to the rattle of harebells against the whistle of a distant train, shall watch clover blush and scabious nod, pinch the ample veitches, and savour the virgin turf.
He shall know grasses, timothy and wag -wanton, and dust his finger- tips in Yorkshire fog.
By the river he shall know pink willow-herb and purple pikes of loosestrife, and the sweetshop smell of water- mint where the rat dives silently from its hole.
He shall know the velvet leaves and yellow spike of the old dowager, mullein, recognise the whole company of thistles, and greet the relatives of the nettle, wound-wort and hore- hound, yellow rattle, betony, bugle and archangel. In autumn, he shall know the hedge lanterns, hips and haws and bryony.
At Christmas he shall climb an old apple-tree for mistletoe, and know whom to kiss and how.
He shall know the butterflies that suck the brambles, common whites and marbled white, orange- tip, brimstone, and the carnivorous clouded yellows.
He shall watch fritillaries, pearl-bordered and silver-washed, flit like fireballs across the sunlit rides. He shall see that family of capitalists, peacock, painted lady, red admiral and the tortoiseshells, uncurl their trunks to suck blood from bruised plums, while the purple emperor and white admiral glut themselves on the bowels of a rabbit.
He shall know the jagged comma, printed with a white c, the manx-tailed iridescent hair-streaks, and the skippers demure as charwomen on Monday morning.
He shall run to the glint of silver on a chalk-hill blue - glint of a breeze on water beneath an open sky - and shall follow the brown explorers, meadow brown, brown argus, speckled wood and ringlet.
He shall see death and revolution in the burnet moth, black and red, crawling from a house of yellow talc tied half-way up a tall grass.
He shall know more rational moths, who like the night, the gaudy tigers, cream-spot and scarlet, and the red and yellow underwings.
He shall hear the humming-bird hawk moth arrive like an air- raid on the garden at dusk, and know the other hawks, pink sleek-bodied elephant, poplar, lime, and death’s head.
He shall count the pinions of the plume moths, and find the large emerald waiting in the rain-dewed grass.
All these I learnt when I was a child and each recalls a place or occasion that might otherwise be lost.
They were my own discoveries.
They taught me to look at the world with my own eyes and with attention.
They gave me a first content with the universe.
Town-dwellers lack this intimate content, but my son shall have it!

[Neil Hulme]

The boy stood on the burning deck,
His trousers were a-flicker,
The greatest poet of them all,
Is clearly Sussex Kipper.

[Lynn]

Hi Kipper

Well a certain mutual friend of ours will NOT be impressed with the standard of your verse!!

[PaulJBN]

The Orange Tip, by PaulJBN

Oh Orange-TIp, oh Orange-Tip
For God's sake just calm down and sit still for half a minute
At least let me get my camera ready before you bugger off again
Come on now, be fair, there's a good little butterfly
dum dee dum dee dum dee da
Oh Orange-Tip

[Dave McCormick]

(this may seem bad, but its all I got):

Flutterby Flutterby,
Flying in the wind
Flutterby Flutterby,
Sitting on my bin,
Flutterby Flutterby,
Feeding on some flowers,
Flutterby Flutterby,
watching you for hours

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Paul and Dave,
That'll be three of us better than Keats then!
Neil

[Rogerdodge]

Right - promise you won't take the pi**, but I have had a glass of whisky too many, and just written my first ever poem.
Here it is (please be gentle with me!!!)

peaceful on a still May day
the morning mists burn away
birdsong in the early morn
a fine dew on the foliage borne
the early sun, yellow and weak
behind the clouds starts to peek
and then upon a blade of grass
sits all alert the 'fly of class
tiny, pugnacious, silver and gold
the Duke, so small and yet so bold
the territory he holds so dear
attacking all who dare come near
until the Duchess comes in sight
and up they go in spiralling flight
to find a secret place
and enter loves hallowed embrace
she seeks the cowslip growing near
so it goes again next year......

There!

Roger Harding

[Lance]

Very good Roger
Better than anything I could write.

[PaulJBN]

Apologies for going 'off topic' somewhat, but I love the WWI poets and that poem of Rogerdodge struck me as scannning just like "Rendezvous" by Alan Seeger.

I guess lots of poems scan similarly - certainly most of Siegfried Sassoon's stuff does.

Here's Rendezvous.

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

By Alan Seeger

[Trev Sawyer]

Ode to a Grizzled Skipper

The poor old Grizzled Skipper
is very much maligned…
at Over Railway Cutting, folk
have not been very kind.

They’ve covered ‘Over’ much of it
with concrete slabs and track.
The end seems nigh for ‘little Griz’.
There ‘aint no turning back.

So if you have this little gem
inhabiting your patch,
make very sure the powers-that-be
are not allowed to hatch…

…a plan to decimate the plants
on which its larva feeds.
They are important foodstuffs,
not just simply… ‘random weeds’.

But this site was my local one.
Today I had to travel.
A map was bought and once or twice,
within the car unravelled.

I had to find a new site where
a photo could be taken.
With extra petrol-money used,
it left my wallet aching.

But after hours of fruitless searching,
(when the wind got stronger),
the little Grizzled Skipper and his mate
could hide no longer…

A pair was seen and one of them
was photographed at rest.
I snapped away with Sigma lens
until I got the best,

of very few ‘in focus’ shots.
My quest was now complete.
The day was tough and very hot.
The taste of success... Sweet!

Here’s the photo (see attached)
and a riddle for you guys…
What’s the difference between this
and little Ernie Wise?

The answer, is quite plain to see:
The Grizzled Skipper’s ‘pegs’
are most unlike the latter’s…
He had short, fat, hairy legs!


(I’d never noticed their hairy knees before, had you?)





Trev

[Martin]

Excellent Trev

[Pete Eeles]

Yeah - one of the best for sure

Cheers,

- Pete