those the Japanese poets have been writing about for so
many hundreds of years. But in modern Western poetry there is very little,
comparatively speaking, about insects. The English poets have all written
a great deal about birds, and especially about singing birds; but very
little has been written upon the subject of insects--singing insects. One
reason is probably that the number of musical insects in England is very
small, perhaps owing to the climate. American poets have written more
about insects than English poets have done, though their work is of a much
less finished kind. But this is because musical insects in America are
very numerous. On the whole, we may say that neither in English nor in
French poetry will you find much about the Voices of rickets, locusts, or
cicadae. I could not even give you a special lecture upon that subject. We
must take the subject "insect" in a rather general signification; and if
we do that we can edit together a nice little collection of poetical
examples.

The butterfly was regarded by the Greeks especially as the emblem of the
soul and therefore of immortality. We have several Greek remains,
picturing the butterfly as perched upon a skull, thus symbolizing life
beyond death. And the metamorphosis of the insect is, you know, very often
referred to in Greek philosophy. We might expect that English poets would
have considered the butterfly especially from this point of view; and we
do have a few examples. Perhaps the best known is that of Coleridge.

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name--
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of earthly life! For in this mortal frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

The allusion to the "name" is of course to the Greek word, _psyche_, which
signifies both soul and butterfly. Psyche, as the soul, was pictured by
the Greeks as a beautiful girl, with a somewhat sad face, and butterfly
wings springing from her shoulders. Coleridge tells us here that although
the Greeks likened the soul to the butterfly, we must remember what the
butterfly really is,--the last and highest state of insect-being--"escaped
the slavish trade of earthly life." What is this so-called slavish trade?
It is the necessity of working and struggling in order to live--in order
to obtain food. The butterfly is n