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Design

by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right.
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost's sonnet "Design" raises chilling questions about the nature of God using an understated verbal tableau involving a spider, a moth, and a wildflower. The poem is often paired in textbooks with Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" and presents a naturalistic rebuttal to the optimistic message of Bryant's lyric. Both poems focus on situations involving animals and conclude with speculations about the Creator. Whereas Bryant sees in his lone, migrating bird evidence of a Power that will "guide his steps aright," Frost's speculations on the fate of a moth lead him to consider a malevolent Designer-a crouching malignancy sadistically toying with his creations. Frost sends his message and achieves his effects through ingenious handling of diction, irony, and ambiguity.

Frost's title alludes to the eighteenth century "argument of design" that purports to prove the existence of God. Given the music of the spheres, the myriad intricacies and balances that govern everything from galaxies to microscopic animals, there must be an Artificer of divine intelligence that brought all this about. But Frost's use of the word "design" suggests not only carefully conceived arrangement and intent but also haphazard jumble or cosmic accident.

In line one the word "dimpled" seizes one's attention. Ordinarily the word has pleasant connotations and would be an expected attributive to a pretty cheek or a baby's bottom. The vowel-consonant music of the word is euphonious. However, the noun, which is, modified changes the effect. Spiders, for most people, do not produce the "zero at the bone" reaction that snakes often command. They are not cute and cuddly, and they have no business being dimpled. Combined with "fat" the word "dimpled evokes a negative image of venomous engorgement. The simple concluding rhyme word of line one, "white" (used four more times in a 14-line poem, commonly has a positive

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