Arachnophilia

4 thoughts on “Arachnophilia”

1. Er, I’ll pass on that…along with Labrat &Co.

2. Awesome photo. There really are some beautiful spiders out there. My favorite is the golden orb weaver and her cousin the garden spider. Fabulous webs they weave.

3. Thanks, LL. I’m with you on the beauty. The species in the photo also has the advantage of being big enough to photograph easily.

4. Early and late Whitman might be of interest:

   An earlier, draft version:

   The Soul, reaching, throwing out for love,
   As the spider, from some little promontory, throwing out filament after filament, tirelessly out of itself, that one at least may catch and form a link, a bridge, a connection
   O I saw one passing along, saying hardly a word–yet full of love I detected him, by certain signs
   O eyes wishfully turning! O silent eyes!
   For then I thought of you o’er the world,
   O latent oceans, fathomless oceans of love
   O waiting oceans of love! yearning and fervid! and of your sweet souls perhaps in the future, delicious and long:
   But Death, unknown on the earth–ungiven, dark here, unspoken, never born:
   You fathomless latent souls of love–you pent and unknown oceans of love!

   Finished version of “A Noiseless Patient Spider”:

   A noiseless patient spider,
   I mark’d where on a little prom¬ontory it stood isolated,
   Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
   It launch’d forth filament, fila¬ment, filament, out of itself,
   Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
   And you O my soul where you stand,
   Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
   Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
   Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
   Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

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