240 The Poets and Nature. 



Of course it is pre-eminently a summer insect. 



" Oh, it is pleasant in this summer time 

 To sit alone and meditate a rhyme, 

 To hear the bee plying his busy trade. 

 O ! grasshopper alert in sun and shade, 

 With bright large eyes and ample forehead bald, 

 Clad in cuirass cuishes emerald." Mackay. 



Who does not remember the day in July when, out in the 

 meadow, or among the heather, or on cliffs that overlook the 

 sea, or in some woodland corner in the country, the grass- 

 hopper's voice "filled every pause"? How the littlecreature's 

 chirrup-chirrup reinforces the idea of a sultry midsummer 

 day ! What drowsiness it lends to it ! 



" The forest deep, 



That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale ; 

 And still a coil the grasshopper did keep ; 

 Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep." Thomson, 



In poetry this small lyrist " that lives on noonday dew " 

 whatever that may be is a favourite figure in nearly every 

 description of hot midday, whether the poet be one who is 

 faithful to facts from familiarity like a Bloomfield, Clare, 

 or Grahame or one who, like Marvel, Keats, or Shelley, 

 are always in fancy so delightfully in sympathy with the 

 spirit, if not always the letter, of nature's doings : 



" 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." Keats. 



" Come, be happy ! lie thee down, 

 On the fresh grass newly mown, 

 Where the grasshopper doth sing 

 Merrily one joyous thing 

 In a world of sorrowing." Shelley. 



