In a lonely garden, a woman and a butterfly follow each other to the edge of a fountain and become still. The speaker feels divided between airy longings and flower-bound temptation: clouds draw her upward, while flowers pull at the butterfly. Her thoughts are bright and ordered like rose petals, but the butterfly’s flight lifts her into dreaming and scatters jagged colors through her mind. When they look into the water, the reflection confuses them. The butterfly sees a face, lips, breasts, silk, and lace and believes they belong to him. The mood is delicate, dreamlike, and slightly strange, as if identity can ripple and change. By the final line, neither can tell which one is the woman and which is the butterfly.
From a Chinese Vase — Summary
Roaming the lonely garden, he and I Pursue each other to the fountain's brim, And there grow quiet — woman and butterfly — The frail clouds beckon me, the flowers tempt him.
My thoughts are rose-like, beautiful and bright, Folded precise as petals are, and wings Uplift my dreaming suddenly in flight, And fill my soul with jagged colorings.
The waters tangle like a woman's hair Above the dim reflection of a face — He thinks those are his own lips laughing there, His own breasts curving under silk and lace.
How shall we know our real selves, he and I, Which is the woman, which the butterfly?