THE FLOWER SPIDER by ALICE CARY

YOU'VE read of a spider, I suppose,
Dear children, or been told,
That has a back as red as a rose,
And legs as yellow as gold.

Well, one of these fine creatures ran
In a bed of flowers, you see,
Until a drop of dew in the sun
Was hardly as bright as she.

Her two plump sides, they were besprent
With speckles of all dyes,
And little shimmering streaks were bent
Like rainbows round her eyes.

Well, when she saw her legs a-shine,
And her back as red as a rose,
She thought that she herself was fine
Because she had fine clothes!

Then wild she grew, like one possessed,
For she thought, upon my word,
That she wasn't a spider with the rest,
And set up for a bird!

Aye, for a humming-bird at that!
And the summer day all through,
With her head in a tulip-bell she sat,
The same as the hum-birds do.

She had her little foolish day,
But her pride was doomed to fall,
And what do you think she had to pay
In the ending of it all?

Just this; on dew she could not sup,
And she could not sup on pride,
And so, with her head in the tulip cup,
She starved until she died!

For in despite of the golden legs,
And the back as red as a rose,
With what is hatched from the spider's eggs
The spider's nature goes!

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