II
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've seen people putA chrysalis in a match-box,"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come."But when it broke its shellIt slipped and stumbled and fell about its prisonAnd tried to climb to the lightFor space to dry its wings. That's how I was.Somebody found my chrysalisAnd shut it in a match-box.My shrivelled wings were beaten,Shed their colours in dusty scalesBefore the box was openedFor 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.
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