"Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss,
poems that take a thousand years to die
but ape the immortality of this
red label on a little butterfly."
-- Vladimir Nabokov
[edit: Apparently not, I wasn't aware Nabokov wrote English as well as Russian. Some relevant links:
"On Discovering A Butterfly" by Vladimir Nabokov May 15, 1943:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1943/05/15/1943_05_15_026_T...
[ edit3: sadly behind a paywall ]
A (somewhat inaccurate, but interesting) commentary:
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.no/2004/04/on-discovering...
edit2: Almost forgot: clearly the original uses "label" intentionally. Funny how the verse in isolation seems to more directly reference nature (along the lines of Blake's Tyger! Tyger! -- while clearly that's not the (main/only) intended reading. ]