There she rested, her black-and-yellow body quivering like a tiny live dynamo from the strong force of circulation, that was sending vital fluids upward into the wings to give them power and expansion.  We had seen the same thing a thousand and one times before, we should see it a thousand and one times again.  But I do not think either of us could ever forego the delight of watching a butterfly’s wings shaping themselves for flight, and growing into something of beauty and of wonder.  The lovely miracle is ever new to us.

She was a big butterfly, big even for the greatest of Carolina swallow-tails; not the dark dimorphic form, but the true Tiger Turnus itself, her barred yellow upper wings edged with black enamel indented with red gold, her tailed lower wings bordered with a wider band of black, and this not only set with lunettes of gold but with purple amethysts, and a ruby on the upper and lower edges.  Her wings moved rhythmically; a constant quivering agitated her, and her antennae with their flattened clubs seemed to be sending and receiving wireless messages from the shining world outside.

And as the wings had dried and grown firmer in the mild warm current of air and the bright sunlight, she moved them with a wider and bolder sweep.  The heavy, unwieldy body, thinned by the expulsion of those currents driven upward to give flying-power to the wings, had taken on a slim and tapering grace.  She had reached her fairy perfection.  She was ready now for flight and light and love and freedom and the uncharted pathways of the air, ready to carry out the design of the Creator who had fashioned her so wondrously and so beautiful, and had sent ahead of her the flowers for that marvelous tongue of hers to sip.

Waiting still, opening and closing her exquisite wings, trying them, spreading them flat, the splendid swallow-tail clung to the page of the book open at the Gospel of John.  And I, idly enough, leaned forward, and saw between the opening and the closing wings, words.  The which John Flint, bending forward beside me, likewise saw. “Work,” flashed out.  And on a lower line, “while it is day.”

I grasped the edge of the table; his knuckles showed white beside mine.

    “I must work the works of him
     that sent me, while it is day.”

His eyes grew larger and deeper.  A sort of inward light, a serene and joyous acceptance and assurance, flowed into them.  I that had dared to be despondent felt a sense of awe.  The Voice that had once spoken above the Mercy Seat and between the wings of the cherubim was speaking now in immortal words between, the wings of a butterfly.

She was poising herself for her first flight, the bright and lovely Lady of the Sky.  Now she spread her wings flat, as a fan is unfurled.  And now she had lifted them clear and uncovered her message.  The Butterfly Man watched her, hanging absorbed upon her every movement.  And he read, softly: