In a meadow full of white and blue butterflies, the speaker asks a companion to hold hands. The Spanish title, Mariposa, simply names that butterfly, but it also sets up the poem’s central image. The tone is tender but urgent: death may come in a day or two, turning everything they have known to ashes. The butterfly, hanging briefly on a flower, becomes a picture of beauty that cannot last. That awareness drives the repeated plea—let me take your hand, let me cherish you until dawn. Even whether the speaker is false or true matters less than the fact that their time is short. The mood is bittersweet, mixing affection with the shadow of mortality, as if love grows more vivid because it cannot be kept.
Mariposa — Summary
Butterflies are white and blue In this field we wander through. Suffer me to take your hand. Death comes in a day or two. All the things we ever knew Will be ashes in that hour, Mark the transient butterfly, How he hangs upon the flower. Suffer me to take your hand. Suffer me to cherish you Till the dawn is in the sky. Whether I be false or true, Death comes in a day or two.