Robert Lowell:
(Boston, 1 March 1917 — New York, 12 September 1977).
Born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr.
American poet belonging to the confessional poetry movement. Lowell is considered the father of this movement and is also important because he influenced a number of well-known poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 and 1974.
I saw the spiders marching through the air, swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day in latter August when the hay came creaking to the barn.
The line describes a real natural phenomenon:
‘spiders “ballooning” ‘—letting out strands of silk that catch the wind, so they appear to ‘float, swim, or march through the air’ from tree to tree.
But in the poem, the image also has a darker symbolic meaning:
– 🕷️ ‘Spiders suspended in air’ suggest human souls hanging precariously over danger or damnation.
– 🌫️ The “mildewed day” and late-August harvest setting create a mood of decay, humidity, and unease.
– ⛪ The poem connects natural observation with ‘Puritan theology’, especially fear of hell, judgment, and predestination.
So the image is both ‘literal’—spiders drifting on silk—and ‘spiritual/metaphorical’
— fragile life suspended over the abyss.
✍️ Author: Robert Lowell.
The lines are from his poem:
> “Mr. Edwards and the Spider”
📚 Origin / Source:
The poem appears in Lowell’s collection:
> “Lord Weary’s Castle”
— published in 1946
That book won the “Pulitzer Prize for Poetry” in 1947.
🧔 Who is “Mr. Edwards”?
“Mr. Edwards” refers to Jonathan Edwards
— the 18th-century American Puritan preacher and theologian, famous for the sermon:
> “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Edwards used the image of a spider held over fire to describe humanity’s helplessness before divine judgment. Lowell’s poem reworks that terrifying religious imagery into a modern poetic meditation.
🕷️ Quoted Lines:
The opening lines are usually given as:
> “I saw the spiders marching through the air,
> Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day
> In latter August when the hay
> Came creaking to the barn.”
