XV. _On the Grasshopper and Cricket._
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he poetry of earth is never dead:When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,And hide in cooling trees, a voice will runFrom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the leadIn summer luxury,--he has never doneWith his delights; for when tired out with funHe rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.The poetry of earth is ceasing never:On a lone winter evening, when the frostHas wrought a silence, from the stove there shrillsThe Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. _December 30, 1816._
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