Classic Poem

A spider once wove a right marvellous net,
Whose equal no human hand ever wove yet,
So complete in design was each beautiful fret,
And finished in every particular.
And the wily old architect, proud of his craft,
Ensconced in a snug little sanctum abaft,
Laid wait for the flies; and he chuckled and laughed,
As he pricked up his organs auricular.

A week had elapsed, and the spider still wrought
Fell ruin on all the frail flies that he caught;
All right rules of decency set he at nought:
Each meal made him much more rapacious.
But his foot got entangled one horrible hour,
As he rushed forth a poor screaming fly to devour,
And to get his leg free was far out of his pow'r,
Secure was our spider sagacious.

Where now is the beautiful fabric of gauze?
Behold! in the centre, by one of his claws,
A dead spider is hanging surrounded by flaws
And many a struggle-made fracture.
'Twas hard, in the height of his fly-killing fun,
And sad, in the light of a Summer-day sun,
To die all alone, as that spider had done,
In a mesh of his own manufacture.