SPIDER! thou need'st not run in fear about To shun my curious eyes, I wont humanely crush thy bowels out, Lest thou should'st eat the flies,— Nor will I roast thee with a damn'd delight Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see, For there is one who might One day roast me. Thou art welcome to a rhymer sore-perplext, The subject of his verse: There's many a one who on a better text Perhaps might comment worse. Then shrink not, old free-mason, from my view But quietly like me spin out the line; Do thou thy work pursue As I will mine. Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways Of Satan, sire of lies; Hell's huge black spider for mankind he lays His toils as thou for flies. When Betty's busy eye runs round the room Woe to that nice geometry, if seen! But where is he whose broom The earth shall clean? Spider! of old thy flimsy webs were thought, And 'twas a likeness true, To emblem laws in which the weak are caught But which the strong break through. And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en, Like some poor client is that wretched fly— I'll warrant thee thou'lt drain His life-blood dry. And is not thy weak work like human schemes And care on earth employ'd? Such are young hopes and love's delightful dreams So easily destroyed! So does the statesman, whilst the avengers sleep, Self-deem'd secure, his wiles in secret lay, Soon shall destruction sweep His work away. Thou busy labourer! one resemblance more Shall yet the verse prolong, For spider, thou art like the poet poor, Whom thou hast help'd in song. Both busily our needful food to win, We work, as nature taught, with ceaseless pains, Thy bowels thou dost spin, I spin my brains. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BOTANICAL GARDENS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS WELCOME by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) A CANADIAN BOAT SONG; WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE by THOMAS MOORE UPON THE LATE LAMENTABLE ACCIDENT OF FIRE ... by JOHN ALLISON (1645-1683) PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 16. AL-KAHHAR by EDWIN ARNOLD |