Poems about butterflies often consider the small bug as a representation of a larger theme, like freedom or beauty. Others consider the creature as an independent life, analyzing what it might be thinking or feeling.
Many poets have chosen to look at the creature from a sympathetic or thoughtful view, considering what it does daily and how it might communicate with birds, flowers, and other insects. Butterflies are traditionally beautiful and fragile; this has led many of the best poets in the English language and around the world to depict the insects as symbols of femininity, childhood, freedom, dreams, and more.
Poets as different as Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson have written poems about butterflies, indicating the universal appeal of these small creatures and the ways that they have acted as poetic muses throughout time.
There are two poems by the title ‘To a Butterfly’ in William Wordsworth’s 1807 poetry collection, “Poems, in Two Volumes.” The first poem is the best-known in comparison to the latter one.
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!
‘Two Butterflies went out at Noon—,’ by one of the greatest American poets, Emily Dickinson is a thought-provoking piece of art. It boundlessly captures the journey of two butterflies to eternity.
Two Butterflies went out at Noon—
And waltzed above a Farm—
Then stepped straight through the
Firmament And rested on a Beam—
In this heartbreaking poem, Friedmann writes about the last butterfly he saw and uses it as a symbol for loss and approaching death during the Holocaust.
He was the last. Truly the last.
Such yellowness was bitter and blinding
Like the sun’s tear shattered on stone.
That was his true colour.
‘Blue-Butterfly Day’ by Robert Frost beautifully describes the movements of a flock of butterflies. He uses them as a way of describing the cycle of life and death.
It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
‘The Butterfly’ by Alice Freeman Palmer is one of the best poems concerning the beauty of a butterfly. This poem is a poetic longing for being like a butterfly, beautiful, and heavenly.
I hold you at last in my hand,
Exquisite child of the air.
Can I ever understand
How you grew to be so fair?
‘From cocoon forth a butterfly,’ also known as ‘The Butterfly’s Day,’ is a beautiful poem written by the American poet Emily Dickinson. This poem presents the themes of the vanity of life and oblivion.
From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged — a Summer Afternoon —
Repairing Everywhere —
‘Ode to a Butterfly’ by Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a thoughtful meditation on nature’s one of the daintiest creations, the butterfly. Higginson glorifies this tiny insect by using several metaphors and symbols.
Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
‘After Wings’ by Sarah Piatt is a short poem that centers on the wings of a butterfly. This poem highlights the importance of accepting change as it is the essence of life.
This was your butterfly, you see.
His fine wings made him vain?—
The caterpillars crawl, but he
Passed them in rich disdain?—
‘The Butterfly and the Bee’ is a children’s poem written by the English poet William Lisle Bowles. This poem contrasts the life of a bee and that of a butterfly.
Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a labouring bee:
'Thou hast no colours of the sky
On painted wings like me.'
‘A Butterfly Talks’ is a children’s poem written by the American poet Annette Wynne. In this short poem, the poet emphasizes the splendor of simple things in nature.
A butterfly talks to each flower
And stops to eat and drink,
And I have seen one lighting
In a quiet spot to think;
‘The Butterfly’s Dream’ by Hannah Flagg Gould explores how excessive pride destroys oneself. To present this theme the poet presents an allegorical story of a butterfly and its dream.
A tulip, just opened, had offered to hold
A butterfly, gaudy and gay;
And, rocked in a cradle of crimson and gold,
The careless young slumberer lay.
The poem ‘Lepidoptera’ is a metaphorical representation of a mentally ill mind, likened to a broken butterfly wing. The poet is imploring society to support those with mental illness.
On broken butterfly wing,
your crippled mind fluttered into my schoolroom. Failed. And died.
I couldn’t do a thing to stir its organs
of poor maimed sense to life again.
‘Milkweed’ by Helen Hunt Jackson is a sonnet concerning the beauty of the milkweed plant. Here the poet upholds the importance of humbleness and simplicity.
O patient creature with a peasant face,
Burnt by the summer sun, begrimed with stains,
And standing humbly in the dingy lanes!
There seems a mystery in thy work and place,
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