VALOR’S CREED

(From Twilight Clear)

I found the item in a journal sear,
A weekly paper from New England town;
A hundred years bygone its news was fresh,
And told amid the goin's up and down:

"The spring comes early to the state this year,
And winter's freeze gives way to April's green;
Above a Main Street lawn this afternoon,
The season's first white butterfly was seen."

Hail, tiny life! Because you thus did pit
Your dauntless fluttering vim to April's chill,
You left a record up a century's scroll
That thus you lived, and did your insect will.

What did you do? You dared essay to wing,
When all your world said No!, the times weren't apt,
'Twas not bug sense to venture Main Street's waste,
When sod and shrubs and wings in chill were wrapped.

Yet thus the valor of immortal strain!
You never know what eye would mark your flight.
You never dreamt that up a hundred years
I'd note this exploit of your life tonight.

Somehow, I like to think, ‘tis valor’s creed,
That as I dare I too share wing from sod;
Let fluttering forth in chill be fame enough
To make an item for the eye of God!