Grasshoppers in Verse

The Gourd by Aristophanes	Rosalind and Helen  by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakspeare	Charmides by Oscar Wilde
The Grasshopper by Anakreon	Grasshoppers Three
On the Grasshopper and Cricket by John Keats	Way Down South
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket by Leigh Hunt	The Grasse-Hopper by Richard Lovelace
Grasshopper and Cricket by Mary Russell Mitford	Grasshopper
An Explanation of the Grasshopper by Vachel Lindsay	Grasshopper Green
Gospel of Beauty 55 by Vachel Lindsay

The Gourd
by Aristophanes (448-380 B.C.)

  There you shall at mid-winter see
  Cucumbers, gourds, grapes and apples,
  And wreaths of fragrant violets
  Covered with dust, as if in summer.
  And the same man will sell you thrushes,
  And pears and honey-comb and olives,
  Beestings and tripe and summer olives,
  And grasshoppers and bullocks’paunches.
  There you may see full baskets packed
  With figs and myrtle, crown’d with snow.
  There you may see fine pumpkins join’d
  To that discovered bond, and mighty turnips,
  So that a stranger may well fear
  To name the season of the year.

from Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she 'gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

The Grasshopper
by Anakreon  (c. 572-c. 490 BCE)
(Translated by Thomas Stanley)

          Happy insect! what can be
          In happiness compar'd to thee?
          Fed with nourishment divine,
          The dewy morning's gentle wine!
          Nature waits upon thee still,
          And thy verdant cup does fill;
          'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread,
          Nature self's thy Ganymede.
          Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing;
          Happier than the happiest king!
          All the fields which thou dost see,
          All the plants belong to thee;
          All that summer hours produce;
          Fertile made with early juice.
          Man for thee does sow and plow;
          Farmer he, and landlord thou!
          Thou dost innocently joy;
          Nor does thy luxury destroy;
          The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
          More harmonious than he.
          Thee country-hinds with gladness hear,
          Prophet of the ripen'd year!
          Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire;
          Phoebus is himself thy sire. To thee, of all things upon earth,
          Life's no longer than thy mirth.
          Happy insect, happy, thou
          Dost neither age nor winter know;
          But, when thou'st drunk, and danc'd and sung
          Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,
          (Voluptuous and wise withal,
          Epicurean animal!)--
          Sated with they summer feast,
          Thou retir'st to endless rest.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket
by John Keats (1795-1821)

                              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.

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket
by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

                         Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
                         Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
                         Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
                         When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
                         And you , warm little housekeeper, who class
                         With those who think the candles come too soon,
                         Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
                         Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
                         Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong
                         One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
                         Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
                         At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
                         To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song:
                         Indoors and out, summer and winter,--Mirth.

Grasshopper and Cricket
by Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855)

                             We sit not now
                              Listening that merry music of the earth,
                              Like Arid beneath the blossomed bough;
                              But all for chillness round the social hearth
                              We cluster.--Hark! a sound of kindred mirth
                              Echoes! O wintry cricket, welcome thou!
 
 

An Explanation Of The Grasshopper
 by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1920)

          The Grasshopper, the Grasshopper,
                    I will explain to you:-
              He is the Brownies' racehorse,
                   The Fairies' Kangaroo.

Grasshoppers Three
Author Unknown

Way Down South
Author Unknown

Way down south where bananas grow,
A grasshopper stepped on an elephant's toe.
The elephant said, with tears in his eyes,
"Pick on someone your own size."

The Grasse-Hopper
To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton
by Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)

     Oh thou that swing'st upon the waving haire
     Of some well-filled Oaten Beard,
     Drunke ev'ry night with a Delicious teare
     Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art reard.

     The Joyes of Earth and Ayre are thine intire,
     That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;
     And when they Poppy workes thou dost retire
     To thy Carv'd Acron-bed to lye.

     Up with the Day, the Sun thou welcomst then,
     Sportst in the guilt-plats of his Beames,
     And all these merry dayes mak'st merry men,
     Thy selfe, and Melancholy streames.

     But ah the Sickle! Golden Eares are Cropt;
     Ceres and Bacchus bid good night;
     Sharpe frosty fingers all your Flowr's have topt,
     And what sithes spar'd, Winds shave off quite.

     Poore verdant foole! and now green Ice! thy Joys
     Large and as lasting, as thy Pierch of Grasse,
     Bid us lay in 'gainst Winter, Raine, and poize
     Their flouds, with an o'reflowing glasse.

     Thou best of Men and Friends! we will create
     A Genuine Summer in each others breast;
     And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate
     Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.

     Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally
     As Vestall Flames, the North-wind, he
     Shall strike his frost-stretch'd Winges, dissolve and flye
     This Aetna in Epitome.

     Droping December shall come weeping in,
     Bewayle th'usurping of his Raigne;
     But when in show'rs of old Greeke we beginne,
     Shall crie, he hath his Crowne againe!

     Night as cleare Hesper shall our tapers whip
     From the light Casements where we play,
     And the darke Hagge from her black mantle strip,
     And stick there everlasting Day.

     Thus richer than untempted Kings are we,
     That asking nothing, nothing need;
     Though Lord of all what Seas imbrace; yet he
     That wants himself, is poore indeed.

Grasshopper
Sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Author Unknown

                  The first grasshopper jumped right over the second grasshopper's back
                 Oh, the first grassshopper jumped right over the second grasshopper's back
                  The first grasshopper jumped right over the second grasshopper's back
                 Oh, the first grasshopper jumped right over the second grasshopper's back
                                 They were only playing leapfrog
                                 They were only playing leapfrog
                                 They were only playing leapfrog
                  When the first grasshopper jumped over the second grasshopper's back.

Grasshopper Green
Author Unknown

                            Grasshopper Green has a quaint little house;
                                   It's under the hedge so gay.
                              Grandmother Spider, as still as a mouse,
                                   Watches him over the way.
                              Gladly he's calling the children, I know,
                                    Out in the beautiful sun;
                               It's hopperty, skipperty, high and low,
                                   Summer's the time for fun.

               Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,
               When he floats on that dark and lucid flood
               In the light of his own loveliness;
               And the birds, that in the fountain dip                        120
               Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
               Above and round him wheel and hover.
               The fitful wind is heard to stir
               One solitary leaf on high;
               The chirping of the grasshopper
               Fills every pause. There is emotion
               In all that dwells at noontide here;
               Then through the intricate wild wood
               A maze of life and light and motion
               Is woven. But there is stillness now--                         130
               Gloom, and the trance of Nature now.
               The snake is in his cave asleep;
               The birds are on the branches dreaming;
               Only the shadows creep;

from Charmides
by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

                 Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
                   The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
                 In sleek and oily coat the water-rat
                   Breasting the little ripples manfully
                 Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough
                                                                           215
                 Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the slough.
                 On the faint wind floated the silky seeds,
                   As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass

from Gospel of Beauty 55
by Vachel Lindsay

The Kansas grasshopper makes himself friendly. He bites pieces out of the back of my shirt
the shape and size of the ace of spades. Then he walks into the door he has made and
loses himself. Then he has to be helped out, in one way or another.