University of Virginia Library

Mine is but a summer song,
Merry as the day is long;
Yet, proud man! whoe'er thou be,
Scorn not thou my minstrelsy.
Though monotonous my note,
Can the nightingale's clear throat,
With its swells, and falls, and beats,
Through a wilderness of sweets,
Pour, in strains that never cloy,
More exuberance of joy
Than my tinkling tones reveal
What a grasshopper can feel,
What a grasshopper express
Of an insect's happiness,
Running in, and running o'er,—
Could a giant's heart hold more?
Or all human language tell
More than my one syllable?
How my pleasant moments pass
In this paradise of grass,
Where the heather and the broom
Flower, and breathe their faint perfume;
And the gorse, in green and gold,
All delightful to behold,
In its covert, dense and dark,
Hides my play-mate, name-sake, lark,
Which, when her low note is heard,
Seems a spirit, not a bird;
So bewildering, far and near,
Right and left, it haunts the ear,
While the listener's eye in vain
Hunts the sound through copse and plain.
Here the stone-chat, on her nest,
Lulls her little ones to rest;
There the linnet, for her brood,
Plies her wings in quest of food;
While the goldfinch plucks the down
From the regal thistle's crown;
And the cuckoo's double cry
Fills the hollow of the sky,
Answer'd by the raven's croak
From the lightning-smitten oak.

Where the fairy-tribes of moss
Ankle-deep the marsh emboss,
With their innocent decoys
Lapwings lure marauding boys;
And the rogues, through bog and mire,
Neither dam nor nest acquire,
Either prize which they pursue
Vanishing when most in view:
As, along the self-same place,
Jack-o-lantern's light they chase,
Till the meretricious spark
Leaves them floundering in the dark,
Equally by night and day
With false signals led astray.

Here, on berry-bearing shoots,
Autumn trains delicious fruits,
In whose shade the moor-fowl breed,
And upon the vintage feed;
From low crags and broken walls,
To his mate the black-cock calls,
While their new-fledged coveys run,
Unaware of dog and gun.

Feathery ferns, like palm-trees spread
In a forest o'er my head;
Daisies, thyme, white-clover, meet
On the greensward at my feet;
On the rocks the wild briar rose
In its single beauty blows,
With its deepest crimson glows;
Speedwell tinged with heavenly blue,
Eyebright pearl'd with morning dew,
Maiden pansy freak'd with jet,
And her sister violet,
Grace the turf, round whose small blades
Glow-worms light the evening shades.

Where yon glen of shatter'd stones
Seems a valley of dry bones,
Relics of an army slain,
Bleaching on their battle-plain,
Fox-gloves in superb array,
Rank and file, their hosts display;
While their banner'd spears betray
Hidden wealth beneath the soil,
Worthy of the ploughman's toil,
Which already, far and wide,
Presses on the desert's side,
Till the pathless sheep-track yields
Cottage-plots and harvest-fields.

Every element is rife
With intensity of life;
Earth is throng'd with creeping things,
All the air alive with wings,
Gnats, like motes, in dazzling streams,
Gaily people the sunbeams,
Which the swallows, in their play,
Sweep by hecatombs away;
Moths and butterflies, that show
All the colours of heaven's bow,
Flaunt and flutter to and fro;
O'er the pool's pellucid brim
Glossy beetles wheel and skim,
While the water-spider's trace
Scarcely dimples its smooth face.
There, with glittering armour drest,
Plated scales, and helmet-crest,
Dragon-flies, in locust forms,
Sport as harmlessly as worms:
Bees, to store their waxen cells,
Rifle honey-buds and bells,
Provident of winter's need,
Winter, which I never heed:
Ants their commonwealths arrange,
Molehills into mountains change,
And build cities in their wombs,
Palaces at once and tombs,
Where, as in the face of day,
Generations pass away.

But, could vulgar optics scan,
Hid from uninquiring man,
Nature's world invisible,
Wonders, which no tongue can tell,
(Microscopic beings, more
Than the sands on ocean's shore,
Suddenly from darkness brought,
Like the universe from nought,)
Seeing would extinguish sight,
Blinded by excess of light!

Now, of things that creep or fly,
Which is happier than I?
Deem not, then, my time misspent,
Idle and yet innocent,
Though I dance and sing and play
Through my summer-holyday;
All my blessings I enjoy,
All my faculties employ;
Few and feeble these may be,
Yet the eye of Deity
Condescends to look on me,
While by instinct I fulfill
All his manifested will.
—If an insect's life be such,
Reader, canst thou say as much?