Waxing Poetic: Black Butterflies by Olive Custance

    

     Olive Custance (1874-1944) was a British poet and a part of the aesthetic movement of the 1890's.  The imagery in the following poem is so lovely.  Anyone who has put pen to paper can identify with this.


Black Butterflies


O words of all my songs . . . black butterflies!
Wild words of all the wayward songs I sing . . .
Called from the tomb of some enchanted past
By that strange sphinx, my soul, they slowly rise
And settle on white pages wing to wing . . .
White pages like flower-petals fluttering
Held spellbound there till some blind hour shall bring
The perfect voice that, delicate and wise,
Shall set them free in fairyland at last!
That garden of all dreams and ecstasies
Where my soul sings through an eternal spring,
Watching alone with enigmatic eyes,
Dark wings on pale flower-petals quivering . . .
O words of all my songs . . . black butterflies!