XV. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. 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. December 30, 1816. XVI. TO KOSCIUSKO. GOOD Kosciusko! thy great name alone The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing, Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne. It tells me too, that on a happy day, When some good spirit walks upon the earth, XVII. HAPPY is England! I could be content To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent : Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And half forget what world or worldling meant. Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging : Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, XVIII. THE HUMAN SEASONS. FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man : Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves On mists in idleness-to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. XIX. ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, |