ncing, glimmering, glancing a-glow!
Bill knew well what them elves were at, sir,--
Ain't you an en-to-mol-o-gist?
Well, despite of his old black hat, sir,
Bill was _becoming--a chrysalist_.

* * * *

XXIII

Muffled, smothered in a sea of emerald and opal,
Down a dazzling gulf of dreams I sank and sank away,
Wound about with twenty thousand yards of silken rope, all
Shimmering into crimson, glimmering into grey,
Drowsing, waking, living, dying, just as you regards it,
Buried in a sunset-cloud, or cloud of breaking day,
'Cording as from East or West yourself might look towards it,
Losing, gaining, lost in darkness, ragged, grimy, gay,
'And-cuffed, not to say
Gagged, but both my shoulders budding, sprouting white as May.

XXIV

Sprouting like the milky buds o' hawthorn in the night-time,
Pouting like the snowy buds o' roses in July,
Spreading in my chrysalist and waiting for the right time,
When--I thought--they'd bust to wings and Bill would rise and fly,
_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, as if it came in answer,
Sweeping o'er my head again the tide o' dreams went by,--
_I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir,_
_Tick, tack_, a crackle in my chrysalist, a cry!
Then the warm blue sky
Bust the shell, and out crept Bill--a blooming butterfly!

* * * *

XXV

Blue as a corn-flower, blazed the zenith: the deepening East like a
scarlet poppy
Burned while, dazzled with golden bloom, white clouds like daisies,
green seas like wheat,
Gripping the sign-post, first, I climbs, to sun my wings, which were
wrinkled and floppy,
Spreading 'em white o'er the words _No Road_, and hanging fast by
my six black feet.

XXVI

Still on my head was the battered old beaver, but through it my clubbed
antennae slanted,
("Feelers" yourself would probably call 'em) my battered old boots were
hardly seen
Under the golden fluff of the tail! It was Bill, sir, Bill, though
highly enchanted,
Spreading his beautiful snow-white pinions, tipped with orange, and
veined with green.

XXVII

Yus, old Bill was an Orange-tip, a spirit in glory, a blooming Psyche!
New, it was new from East to West this rummy old world that I dreamed