“The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly" (A Poem)

Published in 1915, Vachel Lindsay’s poem “The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly” possesses a strangely erotic tone. Although the seduction and destruction of the fly can be read literally, many critics, including Franz Link, take a more figurative stance, viewing the process as a metaphor for such themes as the pangs of love and humanity’s devastation of nature.[1]

Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She drove me to her parlor
Above her winding stair.
To educate young spiders
She took me all apart.
My ghost came back to haunt her.
I saw her eat my heart.[2]

Works Referenced

Lindsay, Vachel. “The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly.” The Congo and Other Poems. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1915. 99-100. 

Link, Franz. “The Spider and Its Web in American Literature.” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch. Ed. Theodor Berchem. Berlin: Duncker and Humbolt, 1995. 289-314.
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[1] Link, 296.
[2] Lindsay, 99-100.