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.


 
                              December 30, 1816.