Musings
Robert Frost's Arthropods
Allen Carson Cohen
A
RTHROPODS HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE
poetry of Robert Frost (18741963). In Frost's world, commonplace things, especially natural ones, take on
cosmic meanings. He uses stone walls, birch
trees, brooks, snowy woods, forks in a road,
and a diversity of animals to raise the universal questions about life and "the nature of
time and space." Frost uses arthropods as
vehicles for raising philosophical issues. With
arthropods as central characters, he constructs little scenes or natural history vignettes with themes that, when listed, look
like a sylla bus of general entomology-plantinsect interactions, biological control/predation, cryptic coloration, resource utilization,
effects of plant secondary compounds, and
instinct and learning among many others.
Although several dozen poems mention
arthropods, only 17 of Frost's 347 poems
are focused on insects, mites, or spiders 1, This
fact, in itself, does not recommend Frost as
the poet laureate of entomology. However,
the humor and richness of those poems, their
accuracy of detail, their thought-provoking
themes as well as the affection and respect
with which he treats arthropods all recommend this great American poet's works to
anyone who loves insects and their kin. For
those of us who have chosen to dedicate our
lives to arthropods, it is reinforcing to see
insects and their kin respectfully and lovingly depicted and interpreted by artists,
photographers, and poets. In this vein, I long
have found Frost's treatment of arthropods
a rewarding and thought-provoking
experience that grows richer every time Ire-read
the works that I discuss here.
'In additionto mydiscussionof "Design,""Departmental,"and "A ConsiderableSpeck,"I herehavecataloguedthe poemsin whicharthropodsarecentralto the
themeor action:"RosePogonias"(butterflies),"A Prayer
in Spring"(bees),"VantagePoint" (ants),"The Tuftof
Flowers"(butterflies),"A Line-StormSong"(bees),"Evil
TendenciesCancel" (plant parasites,in general),"Pod
of the Milkweed" (butterflies),"In a Glass of Cider"
(mite).In the followingpoems, the titles bespeakthe
arthropodsubjects:"MyButtetfly,""BlueButterflyDay,"
"Firefliesin the Garden," "The Cocoon," "The Whitetailed Hornet," and "Waspish."
70
the irony, the flower, we all know, has attracted the spider and the moth. It brought
the " ... kindred spider to that height/ Then
steered the white moth thither in the night."
As entomologists, we know that many ambush predators such as crab spiders sit cryptically in or on flowers awaiting prey, such as
moths, that are foraging for nectar. We know,
too, that many species of white flowers are
moth pollinated and attract nocturnal species. However, instead of the mutual benefits
to the moth and the flower, it is the spider
that profited from this situation (unless the
moth, to the detriment of the plant, was
about to infest the heal-all with eggs). The
"heal-all," Prunella vulgaris L., is a member
of the mint family (Laminaceae) and has been
used in herbal medicines (The Wise Garden
Encyclopedia. 1970. p. 785. E.L.D. Seymour
led]. Harper Collins, Crawfordsville, IN).
Ordinarily, the flowers are purple or blue
but, occasionally, are white. Frost calls atDesign2
tention to the unusual circumstance of the
flower's being white with poetic ambiguity
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
("What had that flower to do with being
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
white,lThe wayside blue and innocent healLike a white piece of rigid satin clothall?"). The flower's whiteness permitted a
Assorted characters of death and blight
white spider to be concealed so that the white
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
moth could not notice it against a matching
Like the ingredients of a witches= brothbackground. Were the flower its ordinary
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
color (purple or blue), the action of the poem
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
probably would not have taken place.
Great poetry (and great literature, in genWhat had that flower to do with being white,
eral) is characterized by its representation of
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height, truth, often with many levels of meaning.
Then steered the white moth thither in the night? The ambiguity of "Design" as it is centered
on the issue of whiteness conveys such mulWhat but design of darkness to appall?tiple truths. In an immediate sense, the flower
If design govern in a thing so small.
did not heal the moth. It did heal the spider's
hunger. But in the long run, the moth's
A tantalizingly ambiguous aspect of this
earthly struggles were ended by this interacpoem is the fact that each character is whitetion, so it was "healed" in a macabre or sarthe flower that serves as the stage for the
donic way. So, as the stage of concealment
killing, the killer, and the victim. To add to
for the spider's treacherous lurking and capture of the moth, was the heal-all truly "in'The selections,"Design,""Departmental,"and "A
nocent?"
ConsiderableSpeck,"are from The Poetry of Robert
Frost, editedbyEdwardConneryFrost,Copyright1936,
The imagery of this poem is rich and fresh.
1942 byRobertFrost;Copyright1964, © 1970 byLeslie
Some examples of this richness are the simiFrostBallantine;© 1969 by HenryHolt and Company.
les likening the moth's wings to a "piece of
Reprintedby permissionof HenryHolt & Co., Inc.
My favorite of Frost's poems is "Design,"
a sonnet that appears to be about a simple
act of predation by a white spider that has
killed a white moth on a white flower (a healall). I say that it "appears to be about" because Frost uses the circumstances of the
poem to raise questions about the nature of
the universe, predestination, and the nature
of good and evil. The spider is dimpled, fat
and white-all adjectives traditionally attributed to things that are good and wholesome.
Dimples are characteristics of innocent babies. Santa Claus is fat and jolly. White is
traditionally, in Western cultures, associated
with purity (see Melville's discussion of the
whiteness of the whale in Moby Dick). But
spiders (to people other than arachnologists)
should be sinister, and the act of killingeven a moth--conventionally
is associated
with evil.
AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Summer 1999
rigid satin cloth," the "flower like a froth,"
and "dead wings carried like a paper kite,"
all these things being "like the ingredients of
a witch's broth." Not only do these images,
similes, and metaphors build a vivid visual
picture, they play with our judgment about
whether this situation is good or evil. Kites,
snow-drops, and flowers usually are associated with cheerful feelings, but Frost tells us
that they are like witches' broth! After juxtaposing images that are at one time bright
and cheerful and then, suddenly, tainted with
death, Frost asks the cosmic question about
what caused all this to happen? If he had
ended the poem in that 13th line, he would
have concluded for us that a vast, dark force
foreordains
all of these affairs of life and
death. But then, in the 14th line, he raises the
question about predestination
in small, inconsequential
matters. It seems to me that
Frost is not merely writing about "things so
small" as spiders and moths but about what
to us are cosmic matters, which may also be
"things so small" in a grander scale of the
universe.
It would be remiss for me, as a former
English teacher, to omit mention of the exquisite form (design) of "Design." As a sonnet, it is 14 lines long and written in iambic
pentameter, a cadence of 5 feet per line, each
foot having one unstressed and one stressed
syllable. A poetic foot is the combination of
a vocally stressed syllable with a combination of one or two unstressed syllables that
precede or follow the stress. The arrangement of feet gives cadence to the poetic line.
As if the sonnet form were not difficult
enough, "Design" is a modified Petrarchan
sonnet-the
tightest rhyme scheme and cadence that can be used by a poet writing in
English (remember that Italian, the language
used by Petrarch, has many more rhyming
words than does English). The rhyme scheme
is abba abba acaacc. Even Shakespeare wrote
in a more liberal rhyme scheme in his sonnets (ababcdcd efef gg is the rhyme scheme
of Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 18, "Shall I
compare thee to a summer's da y?"). It is easy
to force words to rhyme in a doggerel verse
(such as "Some flies and fleas will bite your
knees/ But house dust mites will make you
sneeze"-A.
C. Cohen); but rhymes in great
poetry are at once subtle, and they give emphasis to meaning. One of the most powerful aspects of "Design" is Frost's use of juxtaposed ideas, images, and rhyming words
that reinforce the ideas that these images suggest.
Using all of these poetic devices in "Design," Frost challenges our traditional and
complacent thinking. He keeps us off balance and compels us to wonder what really
is good and what is evil. After making us
zigzag between the nature of good and evil
AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST
•
Volume 45, Number 2
and the question of predestination
(design),
Frost shakes our complacency
about the
nature of life in the final couplet, and he
forces us to answer the questions for ourselves.
The next poem, "Departmental,"
has a
much lighter mood. However, the natural
history of this poem is no less accurate or
insightful than what we found in "Design."
In "Departmental,"
a foraging ant has just
encountered
a dead (or torpid) moth, and
the poem proceeds to explain how ants' "enquiry squad! Whose work is to find out God/
And the nature of time and space ... " responds to such animate objects, including
one of their own dead. What better way to
describe the highly stereotyped and instinctive behavior of ants than as "departmental?"
Departmental
An ant on a table cloth
Ran into a dormant moth
Of many time his size,
He showed not the least surprise.
His business wasn't with such.
He gave it scarcely a touch,
And was off on his duty run.
Yet if he encountered one
Of the hive's enquiry squad
Whose work is to find out God
And the nature of time and space,
He would put him onto the case.
Ants are a curious race;
One crossing with hurried tread
The body of one of their dead
Isn't given a moment's arrestSeems not even impressed.
But he no doubt reports to any
With whom he crosses antennae,
And they no doubt report
To the higher-up at court.
Then word goes forth in Formic:
"Death's come to jerry McCormic,
Our selfless forager jerry.
Will the specialjanizary
Whose office it is to bury
The dead of the commissary
Go bring him home to his people.
Lay him in state on a sepal.
Wrap him for shroud in a petal.
Embalm him in ichor of nettle.
This is the word of your Queen."
And presently on the scene
Appears a solemn mortician;
And taking formal position,
With feelers calmly atwiddle,
Seizes the dead by the middle,
And heaving him high in air,
Carries him out of there.
No one stands round to stare.
It is nobody else's affair.
It couldn't be called ungentle.
But how thoroughly departmental.
As a good naturalist, Frost clearly recognized the caste system of ants and the mechanistic nature of life. This poem reflects an
understanding
of the division of labor in the
colony: foragers, and even "special ]anizaryl
whose office it is to bury" (a ]anizary is a
Turkish royal guard) as well as the supreme
monarch, the Queen.
"Departmental,"
like "Design" and many
of Frost's other works, deals with cosmic
issues such as predestination,
mechanism,
and free will. This poem clearly takes the
stand that the nature of ants (and probably
the nature of Nature) is mechanistic. I cannot help but think that Frost suggests in
"Departmental"
that humans may be like
ants in reacting to the concerns of others in a
mechanical and uncaring way. But if there is
such a suggestion, it is done Iight-heartedly
and playfully.
Much of my enjoyment
of this poem
comes from Frost's use of couplets and especially rhymes to call attention to themes. He
uses such pairings to create images and concepts that raise questions about the nature
of existence, and, at the same time, he uses
humor, especially in the form of the burlesque
with mock seriousness to tease us out of taking ourselves too seriously. A "solemn mortician" who takes "formal position with feelers calmly atwiddle," cannot be taken too
seriously and, perhaps, succeeds in keeping
us from taking death too seriously. The other
facets of the funeral ceremony (the embalming in ichor of nettle, laying the dead on a
sepal) may be a stretch of accurate science,
but they certainly make a charming characterization of what might be the mechanics of
an ant colony. The use of very staid and dignified images such as the name of the ant
language, "Formic,"
and the reference to
workers as a ]anizary is typical of Frost's use
of juxtaposition
and inflated language to
trivialize the subject (the affairs of ants and
humans). Frost's insect poetry often employs
the device of juxtapositioning
the lofty and
the low to achieve burlesque humor. As he
did in "Design," Frost uses rhyming couplets in "Departmental,"
to reinforce the use
of juxtapositioned
images. However, the
rhyme scheme is not as elaborate or tight in
"Departmental"
as it is in "Design."
The
cadence of "Departmental"
is iambic pentameter, the most common pattern in English poetry, iambs being the natural cadence
of English.
In the last poem that I will discuss, "A
Considerable
Speck,"
Frost again uses
arthropods
to make statements about life
and to poke fun at some human institutions
(in this case, his own craft-writing).
71
A Considerable Speck
(Microscopic)
A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so whire
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink,
When something strange about it made me think.
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smeltWith loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
Ir seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.
[ have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise.
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.
ful being who has Godlike power of life and
death over a helpless creature. The syllogism,
the poem's person is to the mite as God is to
humans, is suggested here. This is reinforced
by the line, "Whatever I accorded it of fate."
But the delightful part of this poem is the
characterization
of the mite. Clearly, Frost
treats the creature with warmth and affection. He characterizes this little arthropod as
ha ving "intelligence,"
survival
instinct
(" ... how much it didn't want to die"), ability
to feel terror, the display of cunning, and
even desperate resignation.
Concisely, the
mite had "mind," and Frost could not resist
using this cute characterization
to poke fun
at some fellow authors, indicating that he
could not kill the mite on his page because it
showed evidence of mind, and he is glad to
find, "On any sheet" (publication) "the least
display of mind."
"A Considerable
Speck," although following the common cadence of iambic pentameter, follows a most complex rhyme
scheme (aabbccdad
eefgfghhfijhijklikli
mmnn). As is the case for all three poems
discussed here, the rhymes call attention to
concepts or images that are emphasized conceptually and by the sound of the words that
represent these concepts and images.
Of course, Frost is anthropomorphic
in
all these poems-transgressions
of objectivity that we would not allow from students in
science classes. But the characterizations
of
mites that show loathing (of ink), inclinations, and ants speaking in Formic are delightful exhibits of Frost's poetic license. And
there is accuracy in many of the character-
izations such as an "enquiry squad" for foragers, and certainly ants communicate about
the carcasses of their dead and have a regimen for removing them with little ceremony.
Likewise, the scene characterizing
the response of the mite to its environment
and
the spider/moth predation scene accurately
depicts the daily affairs of our beloved
arthropods.
I hope that this effort to call attention to
the delights available in these entomological
poems has given readers an entry into the
domain of delight in store in Robert Frost's
poems.
Acknowledgments
I thank Hollis Flint (USDA, ARS, WCRL,
Phoenix, AZ) and Carl Schaefer (Department
of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT), my wife,
Jacqueline, and two anonymous
reviewers
for their helpful, critical suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. I am grateful to
Henry Holt and Company for granting permission to use the three poems discussed here.
•
Allen Carson Cohen is a
research entomologist at
the Biological Control and
Mass Rearing Research
Unit, USDA, ARS, MSA at
Mississippi State, MS
39721. His e-mail address
is
acohenbcmrru.
msstate. edu.
The tone of this poem, like that of "Departmental,"
is lighter and more playful than
that of "Design." The setting like that of the
other two poems is commonplace: a sheet of
paper upon which the poem's persona is
writing. The action is that the writer has noticed that a tiny speck was actually a living
thing (a mite) that had started walking across
the sheet. The writer, thinking that the speck
was a fleck of dust, paused to take aim and
action of stopping the speck's movement
"with a period of ink." Noticing that this
was actually a living creature "with inclinations it could call its own," the poem's persona decided to spare the mite's life. The action of the poem could be paraphrased simply as, "I found that a moving speck on a
paper was actually a tiny mite. 1 decided to
let it live rather than drowning it with the ink
from my pen." But Frost used 33 lines to tell
this story, using the action as a springboard
for philosophy, poetic elegance, and humor.
The theme of divine intervention in worldly
affairs is suggested in this poem as it is in the
other two discussed here. The tension is generated between the forces of a more power72
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