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. 

            The first and the second line tells us about the scenario of a fat, white spider holding up a moth on a white flower. A heal-all is a decumbent European perennial, usually purplish or in white color, that is ought to possess healing properties.

         The speaker sees peculiarity in this situation, since a spider is usually black and he interprets the three being brought all together for some reason, just like the weird mixing of ingredients in a witches' brew.

         The first up to the fourth line in the second part are the questions that are being made by the author upon observing the three: Why is this flower white, when it is usually blue? Why is the color of the spider also white? What made it to come into that particular flower? Why did the moth decide to flutter in the flower, when in the first place, there is a predator?

         The author then concludes that if it is "design" that brought these three all together, there must be some pretty, dark reason behind it. If we were to put it on the other side, it is not God's plan to disregard awful things to happen, even how little it is. But 'if' is being put on the last line of the poem, which states that: "What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small."

         The line is trying to tell us that what if, there is no design at all? That things are not really destined to happen because what if, they are just some sort of random circumstances? The short poem is designed to play tricks with our mind, because it leads us to the art of questioning. The reader is left with questions in his/her mind to answer his/her observations. And it takes a simple thought to make us ponder about the very nature of creation, the meaning of life, its properties and how we perceive things under it.