Magnifying Glass

Before the poem. Three pictures: someone looking at a palm, at a leaf, at footprints. What do they share? A magnifying glass, used to see tiny details: the shapes of insects, the veins of a leaf. Other instruments that magnify: the microscope, telescope, binoculars.

Stanza 1. The speaker holds a magnifying glass: 'With this round glass I can make Magic talk.'

Small things, opened up:

• 'A myriad (huge number of) shells show in a scrap of chalk.' True: chalk is made of the shells of countless tiny sea creatures, which only a lens shows.
• 'Of but an inch of moss a forest — flowers and trees.' Moss is the green stuff on walls and stones; under a lens, it is a tiny forest.
• 'A drop of water like hive of bees.' A drop of pond water under a lens is full of life, as busy as a beehive.

Watching the spider. 'I lie in wait and watch how the deft (skilful) spider jets (shoots out) the woven web-silk from his spinnerets.' Spinnerets are the parts of a spider's body that make silk. You need a lens to see them.

'The tigerish claws he has! And oh! the silly flies that stumble into his net — with all those eyes!' A tiny spider has claws like a tiger's. Flies have huge eyes, yet still blunder into the web. The exclamation marks show the speaker's delight.

'Not even the tiniest thing but this my glass will make more marvellous and itself surpass.' In other words: there is nothing so small that the glass cannot make it more wonderful than it seemed.

The last stanza turns outward. 'Yes, and with lenses like it, eyeing the moon, 'twould seem you'd walk there in an afternoon!'

The same idea that opens up a scrap of chalk also brings the Moon close enough to walk on. A microscope and a telescope are one idea, pointed in opposite directions.

The poet is Walter de la Mare. The tone is wonder and curiosity.