224 The Poets and Nature. 



remains ? And this intimate relativity is not lost sight of by 

 the poets. The literature of fly-spiderism is immense. 



Their Fate sits toiling for the flies everywhere, three Fates 

 in one, spinning, measuring, and cutting into lengths ; and 

 there is a mathematical neutrality, a cold, calculated deliber- 

 ateness about the spider as it works that is significant of 

 assured success. How it tries each thread as it is finished : 

 how punctually it halts at each crossing of the strands to 

 secure the line : with what an air of " Now I'm ready for 

 dinner," it takes its seat. 



Yet there are many delightful passages in poetry recog- 

 nising the fact that occasionally the silly fly does not walk 

 into the crafty spider's parlour to gossip, and that it does 

 sometimes break through " the flimsie nette," and make a 

 triumphant escape, leaving the spider with a great deal of 

 temper to make good, and a large hole in the net as well. 

 Thus Bloomfield enlarges on a bluebottle's scrapes. It had 

 escaped, it says, from a sparrow and then from a'man's hand, 

 but flew "with such adour and glee" that it went headlong 

 into a cobweb, with its owner at home : 



1 ' Who so fiercely came out 



Of his hole, that no doubt 

 He expected that I was secure. 



But he found 'twould not do ; 



For I found my way through, 

 Overjoyed at escaping, you're sure." 



Another association, hardly more agreeable to the fly, is 

 that with fish. As a rule they perish of their own act, when, 

 " on the sunny shallows resting," they " tempt the watching 

 fish to spring," or when, as in Grahame, they provoke two 

 Fates in one : 



" Dimpling the water glides, with here and there 

 A glossy fly skimming in circlets gay 

 The treacherous surface ; while the quick-eyed trout 

 Watches his time to spring ; or, from above, 



