Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE GRASSHOPPER, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN Poet's Biography First Line: What joy you take in making hotness hotter Last Line: Forgotten of all time. Subject(s): Grasshoppers | ||||||||
WHAT joy you take in making hotness hotter, In emphasising dulness with your buzz, Making monotony more monotonous! When Summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp Filling the stillness. Or,--as urchins beat A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp,-- Your switch-like music whips the midday heat. O bur of sound caught in the Summer's hair, We hear you everywhere! We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles, Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds, Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds, And by the wood 'round which the rail-fence rambles, Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw. Or,--like to tomboy truants, at their play With noisy mirth among the barn's deep straw,-- You sing away the careless summer-day. O brier-like voice that clings in idleness To Summer's drowsy dress! You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding, Improvident, who of the summer make One long green mealtime, and for winter take No care, aye singing or just merely feeding! Happy-go-lucky vagabond,--'though frost Shall pierce, ere long, your green coat or your brown, And pinch your body,--let no song be lost, But as you lived into your grave go down-- Like some small poet with his little rhyme, Forgotten of all time. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TEN MILLS: ONE GUESS by ROBERT FROST A SOLILOQUY; OCCASIONED BY THE CHIRPING OF A GRASSHOPPER by WALTER HARTE THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET by JOHN KEATS THE GRASSHOPPER; TO MY NOBLE FRIEND MR. CHARLES COTTON by RICHARD LOVELACE ODE: THE GRASSHOPPER by ANACREON KU KLUX by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN |
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