The Grasshopper and Cricket

John Keats (1795–1821)

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.