| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| To a Moth That Drinketh of the Ripe October |
| | | Emily Pfeiffer (1841–90) |
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I A MOTH belated, sun and zephyrkist, | |
| Trembling about a pale arbutus bell, | |
| Probing to wildering depths its honey’d cell,— | |
| A noonday thief, a downy sensualist! | |
| Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath, | 5 |
| Strikest ambrosia from the cool-cupp’d flowers, | |
| And flutterest through the soft, uncounted hours, | |
| To drop at last in unawaited death; | |
| ’T is something to be glad! and those fine thrills, | |
| Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile | 10 |
| Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills, | |
| If ill have any part in thee; erewhile | |
| May the pent force—thy bounded life, set free, | |
| Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy. | |
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II With what fine organs art thou dower’d, frail elf! | 15 |
| Thy harp is pitch’d too high for dull annoy, | |
| Thy life a love-feast, and a silent joy, | |
| As mute and rapt as Passion’s silent self. | |
| I turn from thee, and see the swallow sweep | |
| Like a wing’d will, and the keen-scented hound | 20 |
| That snuffs with rapture at the tainted ground,— | |
| All things that freely course, that swim or leap,— | |
| Then, hearing glad voiced creatures men call dumb, | |
| I feel my heart, oft sinking ’neath the weight | |
| Of Nature’s sorrow, lighten at the sum | 25 |
| Of Nature’s joy; its half unfolded fate | |
| Breathes hope—for all but those beneath the ban | |
| Of the inquisitor and tyrant, man. | |
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