Two butterflies went out at noon
And waltzed [above a stream]1,
Then stepped straight through the firmament
And rested on a beam;

And then together bore away
Upon a shining sea, -
Though never yet, in any port,
Their coming mentioned be.

If spoken by the distant bird,
If met in ether sea
By frigate or by merchantman,
[Report was not]2 to me.

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Hoekman: "upon a Farm"
² Hoekman: "No notice was"

Text Authorship:

• by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), appears in Poems by Emily Dickinson, first published 1891 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Robert F. Baksa (b. 1938), "Two butterflies went out at noon", published 1978 [ mezzo-soprano, piano ], from Emily Dickinson Songs, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Ray Green (b. 1908), "Butterflies", published 1954 [ SSA chorus a cappella ], from Three Choral Songs [sung text not yet checked]
• by Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961), "Two butterflies" [ voice and piano ], from Songs of Experience, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Timothy Hoekman , "Two butterflies went out at noon", 2002, published 2006 [ voice and piano ], from To Make a Prairie, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Brodbin Kennedy , "Two butterflies went out at noon", published 1966 [ SS chorus a cappella ], from Sails, Robins, and Butterflies [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , no title, copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 65