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.