On The Grasshopper and Cricket

by John Keats

On The Grasshopper and Cricket is Keats' Sonnet XV. Favorite quote: "The poetry of the earth is never dead."


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.