Read "An Epitaph Written in the Sand, on a Butterfly Drowned in the Sea" by Helen Gray Cone online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
OBERON
Poor Psyche, to a Power supernal wed, / How strong a fate on this thy frailness fell! / What strange ironic word shall here be read? / Dead sign of immortality, farewell!
I sigh not that the summer fields have lost / One flying flower: who counts the butterflies? / I sigh not that thy sunny hour was crossed / The self-same Shadow surely waits mine eyes.
Thy piteous terror of the appointed end, / For this I sigh! The billow, poised above, / Fell on thee like the beast that leaps to rend; / Thou couldst not know thy bridegroom Death was Love!
How otherwise thy sister, yea the Soul / Bent brooding o'er these broken wings of thine! - / Through all her house of mystery once she stole / To the inmost room, and found a Face benign.
Now whirl her where ye must, ye waves of Law- / Aye, tear her vans, her painted hopes, apart! / She cannot fear, remembering what she saw: / Dark bridegroom Death, she knows thee Who thou art!