The Caterpillar

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.

Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm.

When I'm old, tired, melancholy,
I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.

Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I'll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat, as one ought to eat.

Robert von Ranke Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was a British poet, historical novelist, critic, and classicist. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a distinguished Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival. Known for his war poetry, love poems, and scholarly works, he created a lasting literary legacy, including his interpretations of the Greek myths. Graves was also a soldier in World War I, an experience that profoundly influenced his writing.

Robert von Ranke Graves

Babylon

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

Star-Talk

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

A Child's Nightmare

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

Rocky Acres.

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Cottage

Here in turn succeed and rule
Carter, smith, and village fool,
Then again the place is known
As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;
Now somehow it's come to me
To light the fire and hold the key,
Here in Heaven to reign alone.

All the walls are white with lime,
Big blue periwinkles climb
And kiss the crumbling window-sill;
Snug inside I sit and rhyme,
Planning, poem, book, or fable,
At my darling beech-wood table
Fresh with bluebells from the hill.

Through the window I can see
Rooks above the cherry-tree,
Sparrows in the violet bed,
Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,
And old red bracken smoulders still
Among boulders on the hill,
Far too bright to seem quite dead.

But old Death, who can't forget,
Waits his time and watche...

Robert von Ranke Graves

Caterpillars

Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day
Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled,
Tricked thither as they filed shuffling out one morn
Head to tail when the common hunger called.

Head to tail in a heaving ring day after day,
Night after slow night, the starving mommets crept,
Each following each, head to tail, day after day,
An unbroken ring of hunger, then it was snapt.

I thought of you, long-heaving, horned green caterpillars,
As I lay awake. My thoughts crawled each after each,
Crawling at night each after each on the same nerve,
An unbroken ring of thoughts too sore for speech.

Over and over and over and over again
The same hungry thoughts and the hopeless same regrets,
Over and over the same truths, again and again
In a heaving r...

John Frederick Freeman

Butterflies

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
And stills the riot of pain and grief,
Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

"You will find on it whorls and clots of
Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
Glorious butterflies raised from the dead."

"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
The three-dimensioned preacher saith;
So we must not look where the snail...

Rudyard

Summer Noontide

The slender snail clings to the leaf,
Gray on its silvered underside;
And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief
Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,
Her warm hands berry-dyed,
Comes down the tanned Noontide.

The pungent fragrance of the mint
And pennyroyal drench her gown,
That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint
Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint
Of gold and white and brown
Her flowery steps waft down.

The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,
Along her way try their wild best
To reach the jewel whose hot hue was drained
From some rich rose that all the June contained
The butterfly, soft pressed
Upon her sunny breast.

Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,
She hangs upon the hillside br...

Madison Julius Cawein

Butterfly And Snail.

        All upstarts, insolent in place,
        Remind us of their vulgar race.

        A butterfly, but born one morning,
        Sat on a rose, the rosebud scorning.
        His wings of azure, jet, and gold,
        Were truly glorious to behold;
        He spread his wings, he sipped the dew,
        When an old neighbour hove in view -
        The snail, who left a slimy trace
        Upon the lawn, his native place.

        "Adam," he to the gard'ner cried,
        "Behold this fellow by my side;
        What is the use with daily toil
        To war with weeds, to clear the soil,
        And with keen intermittent labour
        To graft and prune for fruit with flavour
        The peach and plum, if such as he,
        Voracious vermi...

John Gay

Beetle And Moth

I.

There's a bug at night that goes
Drowsily down the garden ways;
Lumberingly above the rose,
And above the jasmine sprays;
Bumping, bungling, buzzing by,
Falling finally, to crawl
Underneath the rose and lie
Near its fairest bud. That's all.
And I ask my father why
This old bug goes by that way:
This is what he has to say:
"That's old Parson Beetle, sonny;
He's in love with some rich flower;
After her and all her honey
And he'll have them in an hour.
He is awkward, but, I say,
With the flowers he has a way;
And, I tell you, he's a power;
Never fails to get his flower:
He's a great old Beetle, sonny."

II.

Then again, when it is wet,
And we sit around the lamp,
On the screen, near which it's set,
C...

Madison Julius Cawein