Apology to a Caterpillar, Accidentally Beheaded

I did not mean to take your little life- ,
It was an accident-and I am sorry;
I would not take the life of anything,
Who am, myself, eternally Death's quarry.

I cannot know how many eons went
Into your small perfection-colors blent
With fearlessness, and fashioned to a whole
As strangely complex as the mortal soul;

With more of beauty than most men are given
In one coruscant eye like jade from heaven;
As much of mystery in your strange cycle
As he in his.

 Now there will be one less
Bright flying flower when arch-angel Michael
Goes down before the flaming word of Spring;
One less miraculous and lovely thing. . .

And so I pause, to offer an I may;
A hasty burial beside the way,
Forming this feeble epitaph, O worm,
Inch of striated velvet-and affirm
Regret at this disaster of the trail,
Although it be, alas! To no avail.

MARION DOYLE.