"Design"

by Robert Frost

(First published in 1936)

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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.

 

From Robert Frost, The Complete Poems of Robert Frost.

Last modified October 11, 2002

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