Maggie's Farm

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall? -
If design govern in a thing so small.

I usually let poems stand on their own, but I cannot resist commenting that this little poem is itself design personified, as complex and intricate as a watch or a cobweb. I think he spent a lot of time working this poem. BTW, as the poem discusses, Heal-All, or Self-Heal (Prunella) is blue (as in photo).