The Spider and the Bee A True Story

With viscous thread and finger fine,
The spider spun his filmy line;
Th’ extremes with stronger cordage tied,
And wrought the web from side to side.

Beneath the casement’s pendent roof,
He hung aloft the shadowy woof;
There in the midst compress’d he lies,
And patient waits th’ expected prize.

When lo! on sounding pinion strong,
A bee incautious rushed along;
Nor of the gauzy net aware,
Till all entangled in the snare.

Enrag’d, he plies his sounding wings,
His far-resounding war-song sings;
Tears all that would his course control,
And threatens ruin to the whole.

With dread, with gladness, with surprise,
The spider saw his dangerous prize;
Then rush’d relentless on his foe,
Intent to give the deadly blow.

But as the spider came in view,
The bee his poison dagger drew;
Back at the sight the spider ran,
And cautiously his work began.

With lengthen’d arms the snares he plied,
He turn’d the bee from side to side;
His legs he tied, his wings he bound,
And whirl’d him round and round and round.

And then, with cautious steps and slow,
He gave the fatal blow;
When, frightened at the trenchant blade,
The bee one desperate effort made,

The fabric breaks, the cords give way,
His wings resume their wonted play;
Far off on gladsome plume he flies,
And drags the spider through the skies.

Thus once Lunardi sail’d along
The wonder of the gazing throng;
Uncertain where his course to bend,
And where his lengthen’d flight might end.

William Roscoe. - 1820

(Lunardi was a dashing twenty-two-year-old Italian who, in the midst of the ballooning craze sparked by the Montgolfier brothers, caused much excitement with a series of ascents in England and Scotland in a hydrogen balloon. He was the first aerial traveller in England.)