One of my favorite relaxation activities is reading poetry, and John Keats is one of my all-time favorite poets. He’s got great poems for all sorts of occasions, and this poem “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” is one of the best summer poems ever written. I especially love the first line:
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 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.
Even back in the 19th century, the song of the cricket was the soundtrack to the summer. Just lovely.
What’s your favorite summertime poem? LikeusonFacebookandshare!
