Mr Edwards and the Spider

  I saw the spiders marching through the air,

  Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day

      In latter August when the hay

      Came creaking to the barn. But where

        The wind is westerly,

  Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly

  Into the apparitions of the sky,

  They purpose nothing but their ease and die

Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;

  What are we in the hands of the great God?

  It was in vain you set up thorn and briar

      In battle array against the fire

      And treason crackling in your blood;

        For the wild thorns grow tame

  And will do nothing to oppose the flame;

  Your lacerations tell the losing game

  You play against a sickness past your cure.

How will the hands be strong? How will the heart endure?

  A very little thing, a little worm,

  Or hourglass-blazoned spider, it is said,

      Can kill a tiger. Will the dead

      Hold up his mirror and affirm

        To the four winds the smell

  And flash of his authority? It’s well

  If God who holds you to the pit of hell,

  Much as one holds a spider, will destroy,

Baffle and dissipate your soul. As a small boy

  On Windsor Marsh, I saw the spider die

  When thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:

      There’s no long struggle, no desire

      To get up on its feet and fly

        It stretches out its feet

  And dies. This is the sinner’s last retreat;

  Yes, and no strength exerted on the heat

  Then sinews the abolished will, when sick

And full of burning, it will whistle on a brick.

  But who can plumb the sinking of that soul?

  Josiah Hawley, picture yourself cast

      Into a brick-kiln where the blast

      Fans your quick vitals to a coal—

        If measured by a glass,

  How long would it seem burning! Let there pass

  A minute, ten, ten trillion; but the blaze

  Is infinite, eternal: this is death,

To die and know it. This is the Black Widow, death.