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.