The Butterfly and the Thorn

I watched a gently beautiful butterfly
Ease through the moonlit air
"How sad a sight," silently thought I,
"This creature must be in despair.
For something so fragile to choose to fly
So lonely and cold...it just isn't fair!"

Then the sad sight was junctured
And my story was born
As the moonlight was punctured
By the loneliest thorn--
Who’s every pain I myself had endured--
And who rescued the butterfly, so battered and torn.

The butterfly’s wings were almost destroyed
But the thorn gave its promise to try
To repair that with which the beauty was annoyed
As long as the beauty refused to fly.
Expecting agreement, the poor thorn was overjoyed
But soon the joy went awry.

The butterfly longed to be left alone
For it had only one day of life.
The wind in which it had just been blown
Was meant to lead it to strife.
For when suffering one has never known
Then one has never known life.

The butterfly cried and begged to be free
Till the thorn could not take anymore
“Fine!” said the thorn, “Fly far from me!”
And the words must have struck to the core
Of the butterfly it had saved from the cold wind’s debris
Who’s wings were still terribly sore.

“Oh what should I do?” the butterfly asked.
“Should I stay with the thorn in the shade
When never in the sun have I basked?”
What a decision that has to be made!
A butterfly tapped with an answer unmasked
In the middle of Hell’s masquerade.

As the butterfly dwelt in a darkness unsettled
The thorn dwelt in its own misery.
And slowly the thorn began to grow nettled
But then made itself count back from three.
When the thorn’s anger at last had been settled
The butterfly wished to be free.

The thorn lifted high from the patch in the shade
Of the valley’s most beautiful rose
And said “Beauty, your wings have already been made.
“By this love no poet could compose.
“Fly to the sun and in its light you shall fade
“Till your wings are as plain as the crow’s.”

The thorn then continued, “Just fly back to me and cry out
“‘Where be the thorn by my side?!’
“And I, in return, will promise to shout,
“‘To me, my greatest pride!’”
Away went the beauty the thorn was without
But the love remained true as the tide.