(March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963 / San Francisco)

poet Robert Frost
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"In White": Frost's Early Version Of Design

A dented spider like a snow drop white
On a white Heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of lifeless satin cloth -
Saw ever curious eye so strange a sight? -
Portent in little, assorted death and blight
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth? -
The beady spider, the flower like a froth,
And the moth carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The blue prunella every child's delight.
What brought the kindred spider to that height?
(Make we no thesis of the miller's plight.)
What but design of darkness and of night?
Design, design! Do I use the word aright?


Anonymous submission.

Submitted: Monday, January 13, 2003


Read poems about / on: flower, snow, child, death, night, children

Comments about this poem ("In White": Frost's Early Version Of Design by Robert Frost )

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  • William Kd (3/10/2013 5:14:00 PM)

    Positively Design.: -)

    11 person liked.
    		9 person did not like.
  • * Sunprincess * (10/5/2012 5:13:00 PM)

    wow did a Bing search on Heal-all, saw pictures it is a beautiful plant..this created better visuals and made the poem more beautiful..thanks

    27 person liked.
    		23 person did not like.
  • Poopoo Weewee (10/1/2012 7:22:00 PM)

    I like eating poo coz it tastes like rotten chocolate. Urine is nice too. Mmmmmmm :)

    61 person liked.
    		100 person did not like.
  • Andrew Hoellering (2/25/2009 3:16:00 AM)

    Frost’s brilliance emerges in the difference between this and the final version. In Design he changes the first line to ‘I found a dimpled spider, fat and white.’
    ‘Lifeless’ becomes ‘vivid’(L.3) and the fourth line ‘Assorted characters of death and blight.’ ‘Snow-drop’ replaces ‘beady’ in L.7, and the 8th line now reads ‘And dead wings carried like a paper kite.’
    Each substitution is more realistic, convincing and ominous, foreshadowing Design’s conclusion:
    What brought the kindred spider to that height,
    Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
    What but design of darkness to appal? -
    If design govern in a thing so small.

    46 person liked.
    		41 person did not like.
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