A Painted Lady butterfly in the garden yesterday. The Oregano has grown very well and its flowers attracts more insects than any other flower in the garden at the moment. The blue flowers are Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist) which has self-seeded among the herbs. Some Rosemary front left.
Plenty about Irish butterflies on this website.
Yeats (my flavour of the month) wrote:
And wisdom is a butterfly,
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
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5 comments:
Another delightful image, Michael. Do you, or anyone else know an Irish poem about a butterfly, only a few lines of which I remember: "Dallan De, Dallan De, blind thing of God, why do you play? Why do you drift about in the sun, darkling, painted lovely one..." last few words very appropriate for your Painted Lady.
Sorry Honor, I don't know that poem. No result from Googling either.
That's a beautiful image. It showed the beauty of the butterfly and the flowers.
Sorry for reopening an old thread but I learnt this poem as a 10 year old and no one else seems to have heard of it!
Butterfly in the fields
Dalian De! Dalian Dei!
Blind thing of God, why do you play?
Why do you flit about in the sun,
Darkling, painted, lonely one?
Whom do you know through shining hours?
What do you drink, from secret flowers?
Are you kin of the blessed others,
Unseen, seeing foster-brothers?
Whose is the burden that you bear,
Filmy wing of the ray-hot air?
Does the silk of your cast cocoon
Knit you to night, more close than noon?
Fly you in tears, as Étaín flew,
Questing the king her girlhood knew?
Or drop in dream without hindsight,
Dead to the shadow, blind to light!
I am blind, and do not play
Dalian De! Dalian De!
Thanks SharonSC!
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