Ii

I've seen people put A chrysalis in a match-box, "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." But when it broke its shell It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison And tried to climb to the light For space to dry its wings.

That's how I was. Somebody found my chrysalis And shut it in a match-box. My shrivelled wings were beaten, Shed their colours in dusty scales Before the box was opened For the moth to fly.

And then it was too late, Because the beauty a child has, And the beautiful things it learns before its birth, Were shed, like moth-scales, from me.