Caterpillar on the wall,
Whither, whither do you crawl?
You know not, yourself, methinks,
Strange and wandering little sphinx!

I will tell you where to go,
Underneath the winter snow
In an old tree's secret hole
You shall hide your little soul.

There, with summer, you shall [sleep]1,
Thence, with summer you shall leap,
Wave your fairy wings on high,
Sip the flowers and kiss the sky.

Emblem worm of many [a]2 thing,
So the [poet's]3 mind can spring
Through the hush of brooding hours,
Kiss the sky and sip the flowers.

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Albéniz: "learn"
² omitted by Albéniz
³ Albéniz: "joyous"

Text Authorship:

• by Francis Money-Coutts, 5th Baron Latymer (1852 - 1923), "The caterpillar", appears in Musa Verticordia, first published 1904 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Isaac Albéniz (1860 - 1909), "The caterpillar" [voice and piano], from Two songs, no. 1. [
   text verified 1 time
  ]

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

• FRE French (Français) (Jean-Pierre Granger) , title 1: "La chenille", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Jean-Pierre Granger

This text was added to the website: 2009-11-19
Line count: 16
Word count: 96