It’s Poetry Friday! I love this “good worm” poem! I can just picture this hungry caterpillar munching his way thorough the yard to build his “leaf-green mausoleum”
The Caterpillar
by Robert Graves
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.
Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.
Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I’ll mind my business: I’m a good worm.
When I’m old, tired, melancholy,
I’ll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.
Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I’ll miss my share.
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.
Toby Speed has the Poetry Friday Round-up today.
Graves quite captured the essence of the living-in-the-moment caterpillar. Thanks for sharing this poem, Susan! So glad to have met you last week. Enjoy your weekend!
I love this poem.
Ruth from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
This caterpillar is quite the determined eater! Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the sum total of a caterpillar’s reason for existence!