| James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922. |
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| A Butterfly in Church |
| | | George Marion McClellan |
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| WHAT dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing, | |
| With many colored hues and shapely wing? | |
| Why quit the open field and summer air | |
| To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer. | |
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| ’Tis meet that we, who this great structure built, | 5 |
| Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt, | |
| For we this gilded edifice within | |
| Are come, with erring hearts and stains of sin. | |
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| But thou art free from guilt as God on high; | |
| Go, seek the blooming waste and open sky, | 10 |
| And leave us here our secret woes to bear, | |
| Confessionals and agonies of prayer. | |
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