536. On the Grasshopper and Cricket

THE POETRY of earth is never dead;

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the grasshopper’s—he takes the lead

In summer luxury,—he has never done

With his delights, for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.