Classic Poem

A tree-hole spider (if you know
The ground on which we call him so,
For some might rather hear him hight
In finer speech a Dendrodyte )
Had taken up, to shield his poll,
In some big elm, a small door'd hole;
And there, before his sally-port,
Around his lofty wooden fort
Had built, with ropes of awful size,
His web, foreboding death to flies.
By chance there came a-walking by,
A silly many-footed fly,
And, climbing to the fort on high,
He asked the crafty spider, why
He had the ropework up so nigh
His house; and eke so wide and high?
The spider now, as ever, sly,
With head and lidless eyes awry,
Spoke up and answered with a lie:
‘For my defence against my foes,
Who else might trouble my repose;
For my defence, and only that.
I would not hurt a friendly gnat.’
Just then had sought the tree, and heard
His words, a Treecreeper, a bird;
‘Oh! what a lie that wretch has told,’
He said.—He scuttled to his hold.
‘Why ran you to that hole? Come here.’
‘I'm glad,’ he said, ‘my hole was near.
I ran in hither for defence.’
‘Defence,’ replied the bird, ‘forsooth,
And where, Sir Sprawler, is your truth?
Defence, indeed, and why not get
Behind your strong defence the net?’
‘No,’ spider said, ‘I need not stand
By that, with these good walls at hand.’
‘Ah!’ said the bird, ‘you crooked hips,
I'll prove your lies by your own lips;
You cheat the fly with your pretence
That you build webs for your defence,
With this defence, ten times as good,
Within this castle of hard wood.
I'll have you yet, if I've good eyes,
Before you've cheated many flies;
I'll nab you running up or down
Some tree, before the leaves are brown;
I'll snap you up the while you sprawl
About the side of some old wall.’
‘And then,’ said spider, ‘shall I die,
All out of justice to the fly?
Or else, that righteous you may eat,
My wicked body for your meat?’

The spider here, and eke the bird
Betoken hypocrites in word—
The men who hide their selfish aims
Beneath the shams of worthy names.