Oh ye! who so lately were blythesome and gay,
At the Butterfly’ banquet carousing away;
Your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fed,
For the soul of the banquet, the Butterfly’s dead!
На похороны собираются мухи, пчелы, комары, шелковичный червь прядет саван, а светлячок освещает собрание. Стихотворение завершалось эпитафией, которую сочинил книжный жучок:
At this solemn spot, where the green rushes wave,
Here sadly we bent o’er the Butterfly’s grave;
‘Twas here we to beauty our obsequies paid,
And hallowed the mound which her ashes had made.
And here shall the daisy and the violet blow,
And the lily discover her bosom of snow;
While under the leaf, in the evening of spring,
Still mourning his friend, shall the Grasshopper sing.