From cocoon forth a butterfly As lady from her door Emerged -- a summer afternoon -- Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace, Except to stray abroad On miscellaneous enterprise The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen Contracting in a field Where men made hay, then struggling hard With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself, To Nowhere seemed to go In purposeless circumference, As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked, And flower that zealous blew, This audience of idleness Disdained them, from the sky,

Till sundown crept, a steady tide, And men that made the hay, And afternoon, and butterfly, Extinguished in its sea.