ORPHIC MYSTERIES: THE YELLOW BUTTERFLY

Of all shy visitants, I love That darling butterfly, Whose wings are to the cornfield’s wave A hovering reply. Yellow as dancing wheat-ears ripe He suns with his gay youth, And feeds me with the gold of light, The thrice-tried gleam of truth. When, glooming back upon myself, The garden path I pace, He comes and makes my gladdened eyes The dial to his grace. Unfailing omen, punctual sign! No sooner am I out, He hovers by on golden wings To chase the grey of doubt. All melancholy thoughts to thresh, Winnow the blissful grain Of immortality, and sift From mortal fear and pain. Day after day the marvel grows; Ever his gladsome morn Shines down the blackness of my grief With glancing wings of scorn. Now from the creeper’s bowery height, Now o’er the garden wall; From far-off places, or where first The wonder did befall. In that low bed of coxcomb flowers Beneath her window-sill, Her chamber-window, where he warms Homeward my spirit still; Or plumb-down from the soaring roof He to my awful eye His radiant message angels me From azure depths of sky. I cannot with ungrateful heart Feel God’s fair world a blank. Straight for the sunny thought of her His yellow wings I thank. I cannot still, her sight to want, Weep like a thwarted boy, Cry outright, but with darting gold He chides me back to joy. The stupor of the miracle Ever renewed, the fear, I lose in charmed tranquillity, For she, my saint, is here. Who works it? No dead relic sweet Of her, my living saint, Perfect beyond the skill of thought Of fancy’s power to paint. Whole from her suffering martyrdom She is arisen. No tomb Could hold her, no far blissful heaven Allure. Her heaven is home. No place more holy than these walks, This garden, where the flowers Swing censers breathing up to God, This house a Book of Hours. No room but memory’s sacred hand, Gilded, illuminate, Paints how she suffered, loved and died— The legend of her fate. In heaven she is; beatitude To her; her loved ones still, So loving she, here, here, enskyed To guard. It is God’s will. Here in the old sweet home where, still A guardian spirit, she Heals, comforts, counsels, and performs Her angel ministry. Manmohan Ghose.