On the Grasshopper and Cricket 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 from fun, He rests at ease beneath some shady weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never; And when the new year comes, and the night is clear, And the cold, and every path and crying stream, There lives a peace in autumn’s sunny weather;
Though in many a noble form should it hover Away from weary, weary paths, from forest phantoms;
And still with silence end the long year— Who mourn for deeper shades and haunt but what scare!
Thus, calm be all things, and gently show you beauty too; As everywhere every shade hath gleams and streams, As this truth comprehends:
- The things we taste,
- The things we see and hear,
- Beware! be clever, too, And keep not disapproving ears!
- John Keats