Design by Robert Frost

Introduction

The verse “Design” is a sonnet which is broken up into two stanzas in writing in iambic pentameter, one an octave and one a sestet. The verse starts with the bard displaying a odd natural coincidence in the first three lines, with a white arachnid seated on a white bloom retaining a white moth.

Design by Robert Frost

The coincidence seems in that not only are they all white, but that arachnids are commonly very dark, and that the bloom in inquiry, a “heal-all” is generally azure or violet. The rarity of the bloom and the arachnid propose mutation, which ...