The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-01-28
a Garden IdyI.

With sagest craft Arachne worked
Her web. and at ; corner mrked,
Awaiting what should plump her soon,
To case it in the death-coco6n.
Slgaciousy her home she chose
For visits that would never close:
Inside my chalet porch her feast
Pluekod all the winds but chill Northeast.
The finished structure. bar on bar,
Had snatched from light TO form star,
And struck on sight, when quick with dews
Like music OF the very Muse.
Great artists pass our single sense;
We hear in seeing, strung to tense;
Then haply marvel. grown nayhap
To think snch beauty means trap
But Natures genius, even mans
At best. is practical in plans:
SubseTvient to the needy thought,
However rare the weapon wrought
As long as nature holds it good
To urge her creatures quest for food.
Will beauty stamp the Just intent
OF weapons upon service bent.
For beauty is flower Of roots
Embedded lower than our boots;
ont Of the primal strata springs.
And shows for crown Of useful things.
Arachne's dream OF prey to size
Aspired: 50 we could nigh despise
The puny specks the breezes round
Supplied, and Jet them shake unwound;
Assured Of her fat fly to come;
:
Who takes the fatal odds in fight,
And gives repast an appetite,
BY plunging, whizzing, till his wings
Are, webbed, and in the lists he swings,
A shrouded lump. for her TO see
Her banquet in her victory.
This mat1on OF the unnumbered threads,
One day of dandelions' heads
Distributing their gray perruqUes
Up every gust, watched with looks
Discreet beside the ehalet-door;
AnS gracefully light wind bore,
Direct upon my websters wall,
A monster in the form Of ball;
The mildest captive ever shared.
That neither struggled nor despaired.
On half the net invading hung.
And plain as in her mother tongue.
While low the weaver cursed her lures.
Remarked, ''You have me; l am yours
Thrice niagnihed. in phantom shape,
Her dream Of size she 1gape-
Midway the vast round-rayins beard
desiccated nudge appeared;
Whose body pricked the name Of meal
Whose hair had growth in eartiI's unreal,
Provocative 81 dread and wrath.
Contempt and horror in one froth,
lnextricablc. insensible.
His poison presence there would dwell.
Declaring him her dream fulfilled.
catch to compliment the skilled;
And she reduced 10 beaky skin.
Dsgraceful among kith and kin.
Against her corner. bumped and aged.
Arachne wrinkled. past enraged.
Beyond disgust or hope in guile.
Ridieu0usly volatile
He seemed to her last spark Of mind:
And that in pallid ash declined
Beneath the blow by knowledge dealt.
Wherein Throughout her frame she felt
That he. the light winds libcrtine,
without 4 seoff. without a grin.
And hammered like the courtly few.
Who merely danced when light winds blew.
Impervious to bcak and claws
Traditions ruinous Whitebeard was;
Of whom as actors in old scenes.
Had grammar weavers warned their we7ns.
With word that less than ieatherweight,
He smote the web ike bolt OF Fate.
This mlted drama, hour by hour.
I watched amid a world in flower.
Ere vet Autumnal threads had laid
Their gTly-blue DER the grass blade,
And still along the garden-run
The hlindwurm stretched him, drunk OF sun
Araehne crcuched unmoved: perchance
Her visitor performed a dance:
She puckered thinner; he the same
As when Oh that light wind he came.
Next day was told what deeds OF night
We're done; the web had vanished quite;
With it the strange opposing pair;
And listless waved on vacant air.
For her adeu 10 hearts content,
A solitary flament.
George Meredith, in Scribncr's Magazine.