Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
The GrasshopperRichard Lovelace (16181658)
Ode
O
Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk every night with a delicious tear
Dropt thee from heaven, where now thou art reared.
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly,
And when thy poppy works thou dost retire,
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.
Sport’st in the gilt plaits of his beams,
And all these merry days mak’st merry men
Thyself and melancholy streams.
Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night;
Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topt,
And what scythes spared winds shave off quite.
Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass
Bid us lay in ’gainst winter rain, and poise
Their floods with an o’erflowing glass.
A genuine summer in each other’s breast;
And spite of this cold time and frozen fate,
Thaw us a warm seat to our rest.
As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly
This Ætna in epitome.
Bewail th’ usurping of his reign;
But when in showers of old Greek we begin,
Shall cry, he hath his crown again!
From the light casements where we play,
And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,
And stick there everlasting day.
That asking nothing, nothing need;
Though lord of all what seas embrace, yet he
That wants himself is poor indeed.