The humming bee purrs softly o'er his flower, From lawn and thicketThe dogday locust singeth in the sun, From hour to hour;Each has his bard, and thou, ere day be done Shalt have no wrong;So bright that murmur mid the insect crowdMuffled and lost in bottom grass, or loud By pale and picket:Shall I not take to help me in my song A little cooing cricket?
The afternoon is sleepy!, let us lieBeneath these branches, whilst the burdened brookMuttering and moaning to himself goes by,And mark our minstrel's carol, whilst we lookToward the faint horizon, swooning-blue. Or in a garden bowerTrellised and trammeled with deep drapery Of hanging green; Light glimmering through: -- There let the dull hop beLet bloom, with poppy's dark refreshing flower;Let the dead fragrance round our temples beat,Stunning the sense to slumber; whilst betweenThe falling water and fluttering wind Mingle and meet Murmur and mix,No few faint pipings from the glades behind, Or alder-thicks;But louder as the day declines,From tingling tassel blade and sheath,Rising from nets of river-vines Winrows and ricks, Above, beneath, At every breath: --At hand, around, illimitablyRising and falling like the sea, Acres of cricks!
Dear to the child who hears thy rustling voiceCease at his footstep, though he hears thee still,Cease and resume, with vibrance crisp and shrill,Thou sittest in the sunshine to rejoice!;Night lover too; bringer of all things dark,And rest and silence; yet thou bringest to meAlways that burthen of the unresting seaThe moaning cliffs, the low rocks blackly stark;These upland inland fields no more I view,But the long flat seaside beach, the wild seamew, And the overturning wave!Thou bringest too, dim accents from the graveTo him who walketh when the day is dim,Dreaming of those who dream no more of him---With edg'd remembrances of joy and pain:And heyday looks and laughter come again;Forms that in happy sunshine lie and leap,With faces where but now a gap must beRenunciations, and partitions deep,And perfect tears, and crowning vacancy!And to thy poet at the twilights hushNo chirping touch of lips with tittering blush,But wringing arms, hearts wild with love and woClosed eyes, and kisses that would not let go.
So wert thou loved in that old graceful time When Greece was fair,While god and hero hearkened to thy chime Softly astirWhere the long grasses fringed Caÿster's lip --Long-drawn, with shimmering sails of swan and ship And ship and swan -- Or where Reedy Eurotas ran.Did that low warble teach they tender flute, Xenaphyle?Its breathings mild? say! did the grasshopperSit golden in thy purple hair O Psammathe? Or wert thou muteGrieving for Pan amid the alders there?And by the water and along the hillThat thirsty tinkle in the herbage still,Though the lost forest wailed to horns of Arcady?
Like the Enchanter old --Who sought mid the dead water's weeds and scumFor evil growths beneath the moonbeam cold, Or mandrake, or dorcynium;And touched the leaf that opened both his earsSo that articulate voices now he hearsIn cry of beast or bird or insect's hum --Might I but find thy knowledge in thy song! That twittering tongueAncient as light, returning like the years. So might I beUnwise to sing, thy true interpreterThro denser stillness and in sounder darkThan ere thy notes have pierced to harrow me, So might I stir The world to hark To thee my lord and lawgiver And cease my quest,Content to bring thy wisdom to the worldContent to gain at last some low applause Now low, now lostLike thine from mossy stone amid the stems and straws Or garden-grave mound tricked and drest -- Powdered and pearled By stealing frost --In dusky rainbow-beauty of euphorbias!For larger would be less indeed, and likeThe ceaseless simmer in the summer grassTo him who toileth in the windy field, Or where the sunbeams strikeNaught in innumerable numerousness. So might I much possess So much must yield.But failing this, the dell and grassy dikeThe water and the waste shall still be dear And all the pleasant plots and placesWhere thou hast sung and I have hung To ignorantly hear. --Then cricket sing thy song, or answer mineThine whispers blame, but mine has naught but praisesIt matters not. -- Behold the autumn goes, The Shadow grows,The moments take hold of eternity;Even while we stop to wrangle or repine Our lives are gone Like thinnest mist,Like yon escaping colour in the tree: --Rejoice! rejoice! whilst yet the hours existRejoice or mourn, and let the world swing onUnmoved by Cricket-song of thee or me.
