Butterfly Laughter

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



In the middle of our porridge plates
There was a blue butterfly painted
And each morning we tried who should reach the
          butterfly first.
Then the Grandmother said:  "Do not eat the poor
          butterfly."
That made us laugh.
Always she said it and always it started us laughing.
It seemed such a sweet little joke.
I was certain that one fine morning
The butterfly would fly out of our plates,
Laughing the teeniest laugh in the world,
And perch on the Grandmother's lap.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 16, 2023

25 sec read
556

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHIHAJK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 479
Words 86
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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