EPITAPH WRITTEN IN THE SAND ON A BUTTERFLY DROWNED IN THE SEA.
Poor Psyche, to a Power supernal wed,
How strong a fate on this thy frailness fell!
What strange ironic word shall here be read?
Dead sign of immortality, farewell!
I sigh not that the summer fields have lost
One flying flower: who counts the butterflies?
I sigh not that thy sunny hour was crossed:
The self-same Shadow surely waits mine eyes,
Thy piteous terror of the appointed end,
For this I sigh! The billow, poised above,
Fell on thee like a beast that leaps to rend:
Thou couldst not know thy bridegroom Death was Love!
How otherwise thy sister, yea, the Soul,
Bent brooding o'er these broken wings of thine!
Through all her house of mystery once she stole
To the inmost room, and found a Face benign.
Now whirl her where ye must, ye waves of Law,—
Ay, tear her vans, her painted hopes, apart!
She cannot fear, remembering what she saw:
Dark bridegroom Death, she knows thee who thou art!
HELEN GRAY CONE.
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