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The Full Text of “On the Grasshopper and Cricket”
1The poetry of earth is never dead:
2When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
3And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
4From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
5That is the Grasshopper's—he takes the lead
6In summer luxury,—he has never done
7With his delights; for when tired out with fun
8He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
9The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
10On a lone winter evening, when the frost
11Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
12The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
13And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
14The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Introduction
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The English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) wrote "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" during an 1816 sonnet competition with his friend Leigh Hunt; he published the poem in his first collection, Poems (1817). In this poem, the constant cheerful song of the "Grasshopper" and the "Cricket" assures the speaker that "the poetry of earth is never dead": the natural world, the poem suggests, is bound together by an unbroken thread of joy.
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Summary
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The poetic voice of the earth never dies. Even when all the birds are hiding from the sun in the cool shade of the trees, one voice still sings all through the hedges and the freshly mowed fields. That voice belongs to the grasshopper. He's a champion of summer's pleasures, and he's never tired of singing. When he's ready to rest, he just kicks back in the shade of a weed. The poetic voice of the earth never ends. On a lonely winter night, when the whole world is silent beneath the frost, the cricket still sings from beside the stove, its music always feeling warmer and warmer. To a person daydreaming by the stove, the cricket's voice sounds a lot like the grasshopper's in the summery hills.
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Themes
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The Enduring Beauty of Nature
In this sonnet (which Keats dashed off in during a poetry competition with his friend and mentor Leigh Hunt), nature's consoling loveliness persists through all weathers and all seasons. Even when the summer is so hot that the birds can’t chirp, and when the winter has frozen the land solid, the "Grasshopper" and "Cricket" keep on singing. Their constant song suggests that the "poetry of earth," the moving beauty of nature, never ends—and, symbolically, that such beauty might provide consolation even in tough times.
The natural world, the poem suggests, can be a harsh place. Summer or winter, one can run into trouble: the summer sun gets so hot that the "birds are faint" in the trees, and the winter can freeze and "silence" the whole world. Symbolically speaking, these pictures of exhausting heat, "lone" chilliness, and silence might suggest that people’s inner lives can have moody, oppressive, and deadening weather, too.
Even in the least comfortable times, though, the "poetry of earth"—nature's profound beauty—never completely vanishes. In summer, the speaker observes, the grasshopper sings in "delight[]" even when the birds fall silent. In the winter, the cricket plays the same part, chirping away beside the fire. This reliable song, "ceasing never," offers not just hope and beauty, but a reassuring reminder of constancy: the cricket's song reminds a winter daydreamer of the voice of the grasshopper, and thus of the fact that beauty runs through all the seasons.
By presenting the "poetry of earth" as the steady song of a grasshopper or a cricket, constant even as the seasons change, the poem suggests that nature offers a reliable source of hope, beauty, and reassurance.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “On the Grasshopper and Cricket”
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Lines 1-4
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;"On the Grasshopper and Cricket" begins with a fervent declaration: "The poetry of earth is never dead." This idea might feel equal parts moving and mysterious at first. What, readers might ask, is the "poetry of earth"?
In the first quatrain, the answer (or at least part of it) is "a voice"—a constant voice, one that travels across the summer fields even when it's so blazingly hot that the birds are "faint" and fall silent in the shelter of the "cooling trees."
The imagery in these first lines makes this scene seem both comforting and oppressive. The "voice" the speaker describes travels "from hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead." In other words, it runs through the hedgerows that separate freshly shorn fields. This is a comfortable English countryside scene, a domestic spot of "earth," not some grand mountainous vista.
If even the birds are "faint with the hot sun," though, this is a comfortable scene on a seriously uncomfortable day. The image of the birds withdrawing into the trees suggests that it's so hot out that the world has fallen almost silent: all the animals can do is rest and pant. (While the speaker isn't present in the scene, readers might imagine that the human population is sweating and suffering, too.)
All through this discomfort, though, the "voice will run." Notice the way the speaker confidently uses the future tense: the voice isn't just running now, it "will" run always. The sun can't burn it away; it's a constant thread that "run[s]" through even unpleasant times.
This sentiment might feel familiar to readers who've encountered the famous first words of Keats's later book-length poem Endymion: "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." The "voice" that speaks of the "poetry of earth," too, is a thing of beauty that doesn't stop giving joy even when circumstances are tough.
The first quatrain of this sonnet is grounded in a familiar (and not altogether idyllic) landscape. But it's also full of a very Romantic faith in the enduring, consoling beauty of nature and poetry. Eternal loveliness runs right through the (sometimes uncomfortable) day-to-day world. In the second quatrain, Keats will hug that combination of the ordinary and the enchanted even closer when—perhaps unexpectedly—he identifies the source of the mysterious voice.
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Lines 5-8
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.
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Lines 9-12
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, -
Lines 13-14
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Personification
The poem's personified creatures suggest that the natural world isn't just beautiful, but friendly—and artistic.
In the hottest part of the summer, when the birds are so "faint" they can't keep singing, one voice remains steady: the Grasshopper's. Like a lot of fictional grasshoppers, this one is a musician and a pleasure-lover; his delight in "summer luxury" persists even through the heat, which he sees as an excuse to relax under "some pleasant weed."
More than that, though, he's the voice of the "poetry of earth": it's his constant song that makes the speaker declare that such poetry is "never dead." If that's so, the "poetry of earth" isn't just about nature being lovely, but about nature enjoying itself—literally. The personified Grasshopper's sense of "fun" and pleasure suggests that the earth itself takes constant joy in its own being, even on the stillest, sweatiest summer day.
The weather, too, becomes an artist in lines 10-11, where the speaker describes how "the frost / Has wrought a silence." The word "wrought" here presents the frost as an artisan, crafting silence as one might craft a silver necklace. The Cricket's winter song, cutting across that silence, plays the same role as the Grasshopper's, suggesting a perpetual note of life and happiness running through "the frozen time" (as Keats called it in another poem).
All these personifications thus evoke a living world full of creative delight—a delight, the poem suggests, that remains constant even through uncomfortable times.
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Imagery
Unlock all 231 words of this analysis of Imagery in “On the Grasshopper and Cricket,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
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Metaphor
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Repetition
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Faint
- New-mown mead
- At ease
- Ceasing never
- Wrought
- Wrought
- Shrills
- Warmth increasing ever
Faint-
Tired, exhausted.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “On the Grasshopper and Cricket”
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Form
Keats wrote "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" in one 15-minute shot during an impromptu sonnet-writing competition with his friend and mentor Leigh Hunt. Keats chose the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet form for his entry. That means:
- It's written in iambic pentameter (five da-DUM feet in a row: "He rests | at ease | beneath | some plea- | sant weed").
- And its 14 lines are divided into an octave (eight lines) rhymed ABBA ABBA and a sestet (six lines) rhymed CDE CDE.
The two-part Italian sonnet structure (as opposed to the three quatrains and concluding couplet of an English sonnet) suits the poem's story: the octave describes the grasshopper's song in summer, and the sestet the cricket's song in winter.
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Meter
"On the Grasshopper and Cricket," like the traditional sonnet it is, uses iambic pentameter. That means that each of its lines is built from five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds in line 8:
He rests | at ease | beneath | some plea- | sant weed.
Iambic pentameter is a nicely flexible and natural-sounding meter, offering the poet plenty of room to shift stresses around for emphasis. Listen to the difference in line 2, for instance:
When all | the birds | are faint | with the | hot sun,
The last two stresses of this line get pushed into the final foot, creating a spondee (two strong beats in a row—DUM-DUM) and making the "hot sun" sound even more oppressive.
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Rhyme Scheme
Since this is a Petrarchan sonnet, it uses one of several possible variations on a traditional rhyme scheme. (The English sonnet form is a little stricter.) All Petrarchan sonnets start with the same rhymes in the first eight lines (or octave):
ABBA ABBA
(Note, though that the very first rhyme of the poem is not like its partners! "Dead" is a slant rhyme with "mead," "lead," and "weed.")
The rhymes in the remaining six lines are a little more flexible. Keats chooses this pattern:
CDECDE
Keats has fitted the story of his poem to the divisions of the rhyme scheme, here: the ABBA section describes the grasshopper in summer, while the CDE section describes the cricket in winter. By describing the quiet, constant chirp of these bugs across both seasons and sections of the poem, Keats underscores the idea that "the poetry of earth is never dead."
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Speaker
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The speaker is more an observer than a presence in this poem. Besides a mention of "one in drowsiness half lost," keeping warm at a winter fireside, there's no source for the voice that observes the song of the "Grasshopper" and "Cricket." This vagueness makes the poem's picture of natural beauty feel like a timeless observation rather than one guy's perspective (though readers might be tempted to interpret the drowsing fellow by the winter fire as the dreamy young Keats himself).
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“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Setting
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The poem's setting is both timeless and specific. In its picture of the cycling seasons and the constant chirp of grasshopper and cricket, the poem could take place just about anywhere and anywhen: not only is the "poetry of earth" deathless, but it's also universal. However, the specific pictures of "hedge[s]," "new-mown mead[s]," and keeping warm by the "stove" in winter also suggest Keats's own 19th-century English stomping grounds. This poem doesn't take place in a wilderness but in a cozy domestic landscape. Perhaps that's part of the poem's point, too. People don't need grand mountains or sublime seas to hear the "poetry of earth," the speaker seems to suggest; it's as near as one's own fireside.
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Literary and Historical Context of “On the Grasshopper and Cricket”
Literary Context
John Keats (1795-1821) is often seen as an archetypal Romantic poet: a dreamy, sensuous soul who died tragically young. But Keats was also a vigorous, funny writer, a working-class kid making inroads into a literary scene dominated by aristocratic figures like Lord Byron. He died obscure and poor, never knowing that he would become one of the world's best-loved poets. But he had a quiet faith in his own genius: in an early letter, he once declared, "I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death."
"On the Grasshopper and Cricket" appeared in Keats's 1817 collection Poems, his first book. (Like all of his work, it didn't meet with much success during his lifetime.) In its portrait of a world strung together by a constant note of beauty, the poem draws on a grand old Romantic tradition of finding wisdom and consolation in nature.
Keats met or corresponded with most of his fellow Romantics, but never got too close to any of them. As a young writer, for instance, he was inspired by William Wordsworth, the granddaddy of English Romanticism—but was dismayed to find him pompous and conservative in person. ("Mr. Wordsworth," Wordsworth's wife Mary reprimanded the enthusiastic young Keats, "is never interrupted.") He had just one conversation with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (which seems to have felt more like an inspiring whirlwind than a friendly chat). And while Percy Shelley admired Keats's work, Keats never quite fell in with him and his elite clique; Byron, Shelley's close friend, was actively contemptuous of Keats. Keats's real circle was instead built from earthier London artists like Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Benjamin Haydon.
In spite of being something of an outsider in his time, Keats has indeed landed "among the English Poets" since his death. Ever since later Victorian writers like Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning resurrected his reputation, he's been one of the most beloved and influential of poets.
Historical Context
When Keats wrote this poem in 1816, he was only 21: a young poet at the beginning of what would turn out to be a tragically short career. During this period, he was spending a lot of time with Leigh Hunt, an influential (and controversial) poet and journalist. Hunt was a key figure in what some stuffy critics called the "Cockney School" of poetry, a group of London-based writers with lefty political leanings and a taste for nature poetry. Hunt welcomed the young Keats enthusiastically and became one of his important early mentors, encouraging his poetry and introducing him to other big literary names like Percy Shelley.
This poem was the product of one of Hunt's favorite party games: a sonnet competition. In these contests, poets would be given a title and a time limit—only 15 minutes, in this case—to produce a complete sonnet. (Find a link to Hunt's entry in this contest in the Resources section.) This friendly test of poets' technical skill and inventiveness also made poetry into a social act, something shared among friends rather than locked away in a wind-whipped garret.
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More “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” Resources
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External Resources
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A Brief Biography — Learn about Keats's life and work via the British Library.
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The Keats-Shelley Museum — Visit the website of the Keats-Shelley House in Rome to learn more about Keats's short, brilliant life.
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The Keats Letters Project — Learn more about Keats's life as a writer at the Keats Letters Project, which publishes Keats's lively letters alongside short exploratory essays.
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The Sonnet Competition — Read this poem in conversation with Hunt's entry in the sonnet-writing competition (along with some opinons from the internet peanut gallery on who won!).
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Keats and Leigh Hunt — Read about Keats's important (if sometimes troubled) relationship with Leigh Hunt.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by John Keats
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