I saw the spiders marching through the air, Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day In latter August when the hay Came creaking to the barn. But where The wind is westerly, Where gnarled November makes the spiders fly Into the apparitions of the sky, They purpose nothing but their ease and die Urgently beating east to sunrise and the sea.
Interpretation
The quote describes the natural movements of spiders during late summer and reflects on the passage of time and life's transient nature.
In this quote, Robert Lowell beautifully illustrates the serene yet fleeting moments of nature, as spiders navigate through the air from tree to tree. The imagery evokes a sense of change with the passing seasons, particularly highlighting how the urgency of nature's creatures, like the spiders, mirrors our own struggles and the inevitable cycle of life and death. The mention of the westerly wind and the transition into winter serves as a metaphor for the larger journey of existence, urging us to reflect on how we approach life and our own mortality.
In practice
This quote can be used in a nature-themed presentation to emphasize the beauty and transience of life.
Pity the planet, all joy gone from this sweet volcanic cone; peace to our children when they fall in small war on the heel of small war--until the end of time to police the earth, a ghost orbiting forever lost in our monotonous sublime
We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals!
Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.
The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.
Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.
A sap run is the sweet goodbye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.
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