"There is the grasshopper, my summer friend - "

"There is the grasshopper, my summer friend - "

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend, -

The minute sound of many a sunny hour

Passed on a thymy hill, when I could send

My soul in search thereof by bank and bower,

Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,

Nodding too dangerously above the crag,

Not to excite the passion and the power

To climb the steep, and down the blossom drag:

Then the marsh crocus joined, and yellow water flag.

Shrill sings the drowsy wassaileer in his dome,

Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,

And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam

He spreads his sails and bright is his sojourn,

'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;

All flying things alike delight have found -

Where'er I gaze, to what new region turn,

Ten thousand insects in the air abound,

Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer's sound.

Wiffin (Jeremiah Holmes Wiffin)

New Series 2:18, p. 72

1841.07.03

From "Midsummer in the Fields" by William Howitt