The air that is breathless, and stranger to motion or sound,

A rapture so potent it seems near akin to despair

Is drawing the life-blood in mist, from the sun-ravished ground.

And out thro' this region grown tense with creation's desire,

Inconsequent, fragile as thistledown wafted by breeze,

Two butterflies flutter, like snow-flakes that fall upon fire,

Far into the flame-land, that stretches away from the trees.

White butterflies, innocent-looking and soft as a sigh,

In quest of what blossoms, what mystical pleasures, who knows?

Close one to the other they hover now low and now high,