To A Spider Web Wet With Dew

Suspended o’er the grass there floats a web More delicate than strands of gossamer Wet with the morning dew, in pendant gems That flame with reds and greens and darting blues From the bright sun. A filmy nothingness Made visible by jeweled drops and etched, Like frosted silver, on a background dark Of drooping pines. An airy talisman As lustrous as a diamond necklace draped About a Peri’s throat. What fleeting glimpse Of loveliness ethereal and unreal Inspired that rapt enchantment of design, That harp of strings attuned to elfin songs, That ladder for the moonsprites nightly trail From sky to earth. What miracle of line, What shimmering grace, what witchery of form! So fragile that a fallen leaf may rend Its warp of magic ne’er to know the woof Of hard reality. A diagram Of elfin tracery impalpable; Each angle and its intersections squared By that grotesque geometer who spins Unseen, a hateful spider, ogre grim To all the insect world. Can ugliness So venomous create a thing so fair Beyond the range of art? In pensive mood We pause a moment to admire and scan Its meaning. Can such fairy elegance Spring from so foul a source? Yet legends tell How crippled Vulcan, grimed with dust and smoke, In darkness wrought the glorious shield of Mars. The water lily, blossom honey sweet, Draws nectar from the mire. Nor time nor bounds May curb that hidden beauty that wells up From secret springs in nooks obscure and dark, Till gems of dew upon a spider’s web Glow like the Pleiades in frosted skies.