A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found, Still grasping in his hand of ice That banner with the strange device, Excelsior!
Robert, the Bruce, in his dungeon stood, Waiting the hour of doom; Behind him the palace of Holyrood, Before him--a nameless tomb. And the foam on his lip was flecked with red, As away to the past his memory sped, Upcalling the day of his past renown, When he won and he wore the Scottish crown: Yet come there shadow or come there shine, The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
"Time and again I have fronted the tide Of the tyrant's vast array, But only to see on the crimson tide My hopes swept far away;-- Now a landless chief and a crownless king, On the broad, broad earth not a living thing To keep me court, save this insect small, Striving to reach from wall to wall:" For come there shadow or come there shine, The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
"Work! work like a fool, to the certain loss, Like myself, of your time and pain; The space is too wide to be bridged across, You but waste your strength in vain!" And Bruce for the moment forgot his grief, His soul now filled with the sure belief That, howsoever the issue went, For evil or good was the omen sent: And come there shadow or come there shine, The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
As a gambler watches the turning card On which his all is staked,-- As a mother waits for the hopeful word For which her soul has ached,-- It was thus Bruce watched, with every sense Centred alone in that look intense; All rigid he stood, with scattered breath-- Now white, now red, but as still as death: Yet come there shadow or come there shine, The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
Six several times the creature tried, When at the seventh, "See, see! He has spanned it over!" the captive cried; "Lo! a bridge of hope to me; Thee, God, I thank, for this lesson here Has tutored my soul to PERSEVERE!" And it served him well, for erelong he wore In freedom the Scottish crown once more: And come there shadow or come there shine, The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
Who taught the natives of the field and flood To shun their poison and to choose their food? Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand? Who made the spider parallels design Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line? Who bid the stork Columbus-like explore Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? WHO CALLS THE COUNCIL, STATES THE CERTAIN DAY, WHO FORMS THE PHALANX, AND WHO POINTS THE WAY?