From Cocoon by Emily Dickinson

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged – a Summer Afternoon –
Repairing Everywhere-

Without Design – that I could trace
Except to stay abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers – understood –

Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay –
The 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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A Civil War Ruse by Dennis Allen Lange

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At Galveston, the Brooklyn saw a ship,
A merchantman? Sent to investigate –
The Hatteras, lest Union blockade’s grip
Be loosened like the shattered ship of state.

The Hatteras gave chase; the sun
Was setting both the sea and sky afire
Until it sank beneath the brine to shun
The same world it had beamed upon as squire.

Into the night, from safety of the day,
The phantom flitted like a butterfly,
Till Union sister ships were far away.
Then stopped, said, “I’m a bee; prepare to die!”

The ship was Alabama from the South.
The Hatteras sank quickly like the sun.
She took the bait till hook was in her mouth,
Then ‘Bama reeled her in and she was done.

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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