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On the grasshopper and cricket – John Keats

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 5
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 10
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. 14
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ABOUT THE POET:

JOHN KEATS (England) was born in 1795 and died in 1821, in his 26th year. He was from a
relatively poor background. After school he registered as a medical student. However, his
fascination with poetry grew and he gave increasing amounts of time to writing. He eventually
left his medical training. He nursed his brother Tom, who was dying of tuberculosis, and later
died of the disease himself.

FACTS AND TRIVIA:

 Keats was far from a big man in physical stature. He stood barely 1.54 m tall.
 Keats was engaged to be married to Fanny Brawne. The relationship broke apart
suddenly without explanation, but not before the correspondence between Keats and
his betrothed was leaked to the public and caused quite a scandal. Before Keats died, he
ordered that the letters be burned.
 Keats wrote poetry for only 5 of his 26 years. His greatest poems were all written between
his 23rd and 24th years.
 Although the famed poet T.S. Eliot found little merit in Keats’ work, Eliot did pronounce
Keats’ letters the best any poet has ever written.

ABOUT THE POEM:

Poem was written in 1816.

Poem praises the continuous beauty of nature by taking into account the song of two particular
insects, the grasshopper, and the cricket.

Grasshopper – fun-loving and cheerful creature and is never done with his delights.

This sonnet describes the poetry of the earth, or of nature. This poetry keeps constant, even across
the changing time and seasons. The octave of the sonnet describes the summer of warmth and
luxury. It is a summer of richness and pleasantness. The voice of the summer is the grasshopper’s. In
the sestet, time has moved on, and it is winter, and night-time: the speaker is cold and alone.
However, the cricket sings. To the listener, the cricket recalls the comfort of summer. Thus the
cricket’s song becomes a metaphor for the grasshopper’s voice.

TYPE OF POEM:

Petrarchan Sonnet
The poem is structurally similar to a sonnet because it has 14 lines. It can be divided into an octave
and a sestet. It is written in iambic pentameter. Rhyme – ABBA.
The poem is inspired by the beauty of nature. But Keats is different as he finds nature beautiful in all
seasons including hot summer and cold winter.
The poet symbolizes the grasshopper as hot summer and the cricket as a very cold winter. He says that
even when the birds stop singing during the hot summers, the Earth still sings. The grasshopper sings
tirelessly during this time flying from the hedge. The poet further says that during the cold winter the
Earth also keeps expressing pleasure through cricket. A cricket sings through the stones.
The poem teaches us that we shall be joyful and pleasant no matter what are the situations in our life.
With this attitude, we can easily overcome all the obstacles in life. Nature offers love and joy and the
human response should correspond to that fondness.

THEME OF THE POEM:

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The theme in ‘On the Grasshopper and Cricket’ is nature and its eternal delight and its persistent
presence. There is always a living force working in nature, no one is ever alone in the world.

OCTAVE:

The summer is hot, and even the birds are faint (and presumably do not sing), but in their silence the
cricket’s voice is heard. The summer is rich, and the meadow has just been mown. The grasshopper
“leads” the luxury of summer, and is later resting at ease, in the pleasant shade of a plant.

SESTET:

There is a change from the octave to the sestet. The setting is indoors, it is a cold winter evening and
the listener is alone, sitting before a stove, and is half drowsing. It is frosty, and the coldness has
brought a silence (like the silence of the heat when the birds do not sing). At this point a cricket
sings.

LAST TWO LINES:

The listener is half lost in drowsiness, so that the sound of the cricket is like a dream, and instead of
hearing the cold winter sound, the listener hears instead the sound of summer, making the cricket
song a metaphor for the grasshoppers: “the poetry of earth”.

Line by line:

L1- focuses the message of the poem. Lyrical voice in the poem by making a strong
statement. Portrays a summer scene.
Metonymy (whereby the name of something is replaced by a different word that represents
that same meaning in a symbolic way) – “poetry”- replacement for the word life = Keats
suggests that life is beautiful, musical, intricate and creative.
nature continues to persist and the grasshopper takes the lead.
“poetry of earth” – metaphor for the sounds of nature. The songs of birds have the same
beauty as poetry of human beings like Keats. But in metaphorical terms, the earth is indeed
jam-packed with poetry, whether it comes in the form of the cricket’s song or the
grasshopper’s voice.
Nature speaks all year round, whether in the heat of summer or the cold of winter. And this
constant speaking is the “poetry of earth”.
L2- The birds are faint with the hot sun and they hide from the sun and stop singing in
order to rest.
L2-3- Juxtaposition of “the hot sun” and “cooling trees” – “poetry” of earth continues at all times,
through all seasons and climates.
L3- “cooling trees” – vivid sensory detail.
“a voice will run” – synecdoche : a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the
whole or vice versa. The voice represents the whole grasshopper. The song of the
grasshopper emerges.
- alliteration “voice will run”
L4- “new-mown mead” – alliteration. Vivid sensory detail. The grasshopper continues hopping
and continues singing “the poetry of earth”; he enjoys life and is always at ease and having
fun (lines 6-9)
“hedge to hedge” - alliteration
“hedge to hedge”- repetition shows vigour. Also the repetition of “never”3 times in the
poem in lines 1, 6 and 9.
L5- “he” refers to the grasshopper – personification.
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L6&10- juxtaposition (the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with
contrasting effect) of “summer luxury” and “lone winter evening”
L7-8- The grasshopper is satisfied and he rests beneath some weeds.
“tired out with fun” – personification. Grasshoppers do not honour us with their voices for
fun, as humans do, but because it is in their nature to do so.
L8- “pleasant weed”- oxymoron. Weed is an unnecessary thing. However the poet calls it
pleasant because it is a part of nature.
L9-14- second stanza.
setting: winter
L9- similar to that of the first stanza because it mentions the main message. It is accentuated as
the lyrical voice says that “The poetry of earth is ceasing never”
Inversion: it is the inverting of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.
L10- “lone winter evening” – sensory detail.
“winter evening, when” – alliteration
L10-11- enjambment
It is winter and night-time. The speaker is cold and alone. H
“when the frost has wrought a silence ,” – personification
L11- stove = stone
silence is mentioned but, this silence will be interrupted by an insect’s song (“from the stove
there shrills/The Cricket’s song”.
s alliteration - sibilance
“wrought a silence”- creates a gloomy and drowsy atmosphere which is in stark contrast to
summer.
Inversion: it is the inverting of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.
When winter arrives and all creatures shelter from the cold, loneliness and silence appear to reign.
However, the cricket’s song emerges and emphasises the persistent quality of nature. The cricket is
forced to seek warmth indoors, but his song gets louder as he finds more and more warmth (line 12)
L11-12- enjambment
L12- “The Cricket’s song,” – To the listener, the cricket recalls the comfort of summer. Thus the
cricket’s song becomes a metaphor for the grasshopper’s voice.
L13-14- The listeners of this song mistake the cricket’s song for the grasshopper’s song and the
lyrical voice says that the cricket’s song reminds him of the grasshopper’s song.
Last two lines refers to the cycle of seasons and how, despite being different winter and
summer are part of the same thing.

The cricket’s song is linked to the grasshopper’s song, as they are both parts of nature’s persistent
and loving force.
This final message unifies the contrast that the lyrical voice has made throughout the poem. The
contrast is both formal, as the seasons are described in different types of stanzas, and metaphorical,
as different insects represent and characterise different seasons. However, the beginning of each
stanza and the end of the poem, unify these different expressions of nature and accentuate the
persistence of nature as a unified whole.

Keats is asking his readers to concentrate on the music of the tiny insects which can bring some
relief to the earth during extreme conditions with the sweet music they create.

QUESTIONS:
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1. What is the meaning of the line: “The poetry of earth I never dead”?

2. What is the main theme of the poem?

3. Where do birds take rest on hot summer days?

4. Where do the grasshopper take rest when he is tired?

5. In which season does the cricket sing?

6. The “poetry of earth” is not made of words. What is it made of, as suggested by the poem?

7. QUOTE a line to prove the following statement as true:

(a) The grasshopper’s happiness never comes to an end.

(b) The cricket’s song has a warmth that never decreases.

8. Which word from lines 9-14 is opposite in meaning to “the frost”?

9. “The poetry of earth” continues round the year through a cycle of two seasons. Mention
each with its representative voice.

10. Lines 1-8: How was the continuity of music maintained?

11. What is the impact of the cricket and grasshopper’s music?

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the meaning of the line: “The poetry of earth I never dead”?

2. What is the main theme of the poem?

3. Where do birds take rest on hot summer days?

4. Where do the grasshopper take rest when he is tired?

5. In which season does the cricket sing?

6. The “poetry of earth” is not made of words. What is it made of, as suggested by the poem?

7. QUOTE a line to prove the following statement as true:

(a) The grasshopper’s happiness never comes to an end.

(b) The cricket’s song has a warmth that never decreases.

8. Which word from lines 9-14 is opposite in meaning to “the frost”?

9. “The poetry of earth” continues round the year through a cycle of two seasons. Mention
each with its representative voice.

10. Lines 1-8: How was the continuity of music maintained?

11. What is the impact of the cricket and grasshopper’s music?

MEMO
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1. The poet wanted to say that poetry of nature is never going to end. No matter what the
season is, whether it is the sweltering summer or the harsh cold winter, the music of the
nature is never dead.
2. The main theme of the poem is that poetry and music in nature do not perish.
3. The birds took rest under shady trees to secure themselves from the scorching heat of the
sun.
4. The grasshopper rests under some weeds.
5. The cricket sings in winter. When it is very cold and quiet, the winter silence is broken by a
shrill sound.
6. The ‘poetry of earth’ is not made of words but is made by the songs of the grasshopper and
cricket, thus it is made by the music sung by these insects.
7. (a) “In summer luxury – he has never done/with his delights”
(b) “The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,”
8. “grassy”. Frost has a chilly reference which means a degree or state of coldness sufficient to
cause the freezing of water. This means that it lacks green grass.
9. The grasshopper takes the lead in summer. He is never done with his delights. On a long
winter evening when the frost is silent, the cricket sing with its shrill voice from the stone.
10. During the extreme heat when birds stop singing, the voice of the grasshopper delights with
its music.
11. Crickets and grasshoppers make sounds that soothe the listener even in extreme weather.
The listeners are recovered from their drowsy sleep to listen to the endless fountain of relief
with music of the nature.

MEMO

1. The poet wanted to say that poetry of nature is never going to end. No matter what the
season is, whether it is the sweltering summer or the harsh cold winter, the music of the
nature is never dead.
2. The main theme of the poem is that poetry and music in nature do not perish.
3. The birds took rest under shady trees to secure themselves from the scorching heat of the
sun.
4. The grasshopper rests under some weeds.
5. The cricket sings in winter. When it is very cold and quiet, the winter silence is broken by a
shrill sound.
6. The ‘poetry of earth’ is not made of words but is made by the songs of the grasshopper and
cricket, thus it is made by the music sung by these insects.
7. (a) “In summer luxury – he has never done/with his delights”
(b) “The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,”
8. “grassy”. Frost has a chilly reference which means a degree or state of coldness sufficient to
cause the freezing of water. This means that it lacks green grass.
9. The grasshopper takes the lead in summer. He is never done with his delights. On a long
winter evening when the frost is silent, the cricket sing with its shrill voice from the stone.
10. During the extreme heat when birds stop singing, the voice of the grasshopper delights with
its music.
11. Crickets and grasshoppers make sounds that soothe the listener even in extreme weather.
The listeners are recovered from their drowsy sleep to listen to the endless fountain of relief
with music of the nature.