From Cocoon Forth a Butterfly
poem 354
From Cocoon Forth a Butterfly - meaning Summary
Idleness as Graceful Wandering
The poem describes a butterfly’s emergence and leisurely wandering, likened to a lady stepping out on a summer afternoon. The insect’s aimless, decorative movement—its parasol, drifting through fields and clouds—contrasts with the purposeful labor of bees and men making hay. Observers and other creatures carry on with work, while the butterfly and its companions perform a seemingly purposeless, tropical show. The day’s gradual ending unites these separate activities as sun and labor alike fade. Dickinson frames transient beauty and idleness against steady, productive rhythms of life.
Read Complete AnalysesFrom Cocoon forth a Butterfly As Lady from her Door Emerged a Summer Afternoon Repairing Everywhere Without Design that I could trace Except to stray abroad On Miscellaneous Enterprise The Clovers understood Her pretty Parasol be seen Contracting in a Field Where Men made Hay Then struggling hard With an opposing Cloud Where Parties Phantom as Herself To Nowhere seemed to go In purposeless Circumference As ’twere a Tropic Show And notwithstanding Bee that worked And Flower that zealous blew This Audience of Idleness Disdained them, from the Sky Till Sundown crept a steady Tide And Men that made the Hay And Afternoon and Butterfly Extinguished in the Sea
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