"On the Grasshopper and Cricket," by John Keats

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

- John Keats

 

1                     The poetry of earth is never dead:                          

2                              When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

3                              And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

4              From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

5              That is the Grasshopper’s – he takes the lead

6                              In summer luxury, - he has never done

7                              With his delights; for when tired out with fun

8              He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

9              The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

10                           On a lone winter evening, when the frost

11                                           Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

12           The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,

13                           And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

14                                           The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.