A Considerable Speck
Robert Frost

(Microscopic)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had
written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could
call its own.
It paused as with suspicion
of my pen,
And then came racing wildly
on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt--
With loathing, for again it
turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with
cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the
open sheet
Cower down in desperation
to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the
tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself
and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in
any guise
No one can know how glad I
am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.