Life is like a cobweb: And we the spiders toiling at the rapid looms of time, Weave steadily life’s tapestry with a rich thread of years, Binding the strands of passing days together as we climb Up to the cobweb’s summit through the sparkling dew of tears.
So with the spider when October comes, Turning each green leaf to a rattling husk, We find the finished cobweb hanging there Deserted in the melancholy dusk.
Life has its grim October, too, And when it calls we each must leave behind The cobweb of whatever life we spun So those to come may test its mesh and find Our character by what the loom has done.
Newark News editor George Bancroft Duren included these lines in his 1921 collection Written in Sand.
Summer is dying—in the long wet grass The filmy cobwebs lay: Time is flying—for the cricket chirped At the close of the shortening day. Summer is dying—there’s an Autumn haze Beyond the sun’s bright sheen; The wind is sighing—‘tis the voice of Death That speaks through the waving green.
Shadows are lengthening across the sky, And trees have doffed their frocks of youthful green For robes of richer hue, while in between The clustered stars an opal moon gleams high Above the woods where sleeping violets lie Tucked in their leafy beds; the winds are keen With earthy smells, and everywhere are seen The last gifts of a summer soon to die.
Death! Yet how unlike other ends this one. With tenderness old summer decks each tree In brightest raiment, and with fragrant breath, Whispering softly that her life is done, She gently falls asleep: we hardly see That she has gone, so beautiful her death.
Manuscripts of verses by Emilie Fichter Cadmus and her daughter Mildred Cadmus Childs are preserved in the collections of the New Jersey Historical Society.
The sonnet by Newark Evening News editor George Bancroft Duren was included in his 1921 collection Written in Sand.