| John Keats (1795–1821). The Poetical Works of John Keats. 1884. |
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| 28. On the Grasshopper and Cricket |
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| 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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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. | |
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