Poem by Charles Tennyson Turner

Silkworms and Spiders

The worm long fosters his transforming sleep,
But claims th' unalienable life again,
Which tho' it be but one, yet seemeth twain,
The trance between is all so deadly-deep:
The careful spider spreads before his lair
The web, ygather'd near his filmy heart
Withouten throes or any vital smart,
And of his entrails makes his foes a snare:
In both a mighty mystery resides,
A truth, on whose developement they thrive; 
One for the cravings of his life provides,
One weaves himself another way to live;
To search the secret is beyond our lore,
And man must rest, till God doth furnish more!

1. On the Eclipse of the Moon of October 1865
2. The Sonneteer to the Sea-Shell
3. The Lion’s Skeleton
4. The Buoy-Bell
5. Calvus to a Fly

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