Adventures of a Grasshopper

If tears for sorrows start at will,
They're comforts in their kind;
And I am blest, if with me still
Remains a quiet mind.

When friends depart, as part they must,
And love's true joys decay,
That leave us like the summer dust,
Which whirlwinds puff away;
While life's allotted time I brave,
Though left the last behind,
A prop and friend I still shall have,
If I've a quiet mind.

A GRASSHOPPER, idle the whole summer long,
Played about the tall grass with unthinking delight,
And spent the whole day with his hopping and song,
And sipped of the dew for his supper at night.
Thus night brought him food, and the red rising sun
Awoke him, fresh fed, to his singing again;
And thus he went on, with his frolic and fun,
Till winter winds whistled — and where was he then?

The plain wore no longer the hue of his wing —
All withered and brown, as a desert could be;
In vain he looked round for the shelter of spring,
While the longest green sprig scarcely reached to his knee.

The rime-feathered night fell as white as a sheet,
And dew-drops were frozen before they could fall;
The shy creeping sun too denied him his heat; —
Thus the poor silly soul was deserted of all.

The ant had forewarned him of what he would be,
When he laughed at her toil on the parched sum-mer plain;
He now saw the folly he then could not see,
But advice ta'en too late is but labour in vain.
If he wished to work now, there was nothing to find,
The winter told plain 'twas too late in the day;
In vain he looked round in the snow and the wind,
Unable to toil, and too saddened for play.
He looked back, and sighed o'er his singing and racket,
And employed the last hope he had left him — to beg;
So he sought in the woods withered leaves for a jacket,
Of a rush he made crutches, and limped of a leg.
The winds whistled round him while, seeking for pity,
O'er the white crimping snows he went limping along,
Sighing sad at each cottage his sorrowful ditty;
But a song out of season is poverty's song.

The first hut he came to belonged to a mouse,
Beneath a warm bank at the foot of a tree;
Dead rushes and grass nodded over her house,
And made it as snug as a dwelling could be.

He told his sad tale, and the mouse, as in fear,
Bade him work for a living, and shrank from his sight,
For she at that moment was nibbling an ear
Of barley, she'd stol'n from a barn over-night.
He left her, and journeyed, half hopeless and chill,
And met with a beetle, that bustled away
To a crack called his home, in a sun-slanting hill,
And he'd scarce stop to hear what the beggar would say.

Though he held 'neath his arm a huge crumble of bread,
Which a shepherd-boy dropped on his cold dinner-seat,
And well might he haste, when from danger he fled,
For his dog had nigh crushed him to death with his feet.

At the hut of an earwig he next made a call,
Who crept from the cold in a down-headed thistle,
That nodded, and threatened each minute to fall.
While winnowing by it the tempest did whistle.
The beggar's loud rapping soon scared her from sleep,
And her bosom for safety did terribly quake,
For she thought it the treading-down rustle of sheep,
But slept undisturbed when she'd found the mis-take.

Hot summer's sweet minstrel, the large humble-bee,
The one that wears clothing of tawny and brown,
Who early in spring's kindled suns we may see
Booming round peeping blossoms, and bowing them down;
Our beggar, though hopeless, resolved to try all,
And came to his hut in an old rotten oak;
The bee thought it spring, and was glad at the call,
But frowned a denial as soon as he spoke.

He then sought a ladycow's cottage of moss —
An old summer friend — with as little success,
And told his misfortunes to live by the loss —
She pitied, but pity's no food for distress.

A chrysalis dwelt on the back of dead leaves
In a palace of silk, and it gladdened his heart;
But wealth rarely sleeps without dreaming of thieves,
So she kept her door bolted, and bade him depart.

He then shunned the road, and went up by a hedge,
Where some gnats had collected to dance in the sun,
And the day smiled so warm 'neath the bushes and sedge,
That hopes had nigh whispered the summer's begun.

His heart even jump'd at the sight of their play;
But ere his sad steps to their revels had come,
A cloud hid the sun, which made night at noonday,
And each gnat soon was missing away to his home.

Over hill-spotted pasture and wild rushy lea,
A poor houseless vagabond, doomed for all weathers,
He wandered where none was left wretched but he,
While the white flaky snow fell about him like feathers.

In vain he sought shelter, and down in the vale,
By the brook, to an old hollow willow did roam,
For there e'en a foot-foundered, slow-creeping snail,
Had crept in before him, and made it her home.
Her door was glued up from the frost and the snow;
As a bee in its hive, she was warm in her shell;
And the storm, it might drift, and the wind, it might blow,
She was safe, and could dream about spring in her cell.
He knocked, and begged hard e'en to creep in the porch,
If she'd no room for two in her parlour to spare;
But as dead as a dormouse asleep in a church,
All was silent and still as no tenant were there.
Thus pleading and praying, and all to no good,
Telling vainly a story of troubles and wants,
He bethought of an old snubby oak by a wood,
Where flourished in summer a city of ants;
And though they reproved him for singing and play,
And told him that winter would bring its reward,
He knew they were rich, and he hoped on his way
That pity's kind ear would his sorrows regard.
From people so rich, trifles could not be missed —
So he thought, ere his hopes to their finish had come;
Though as to their giving he could not insist,
Yet he might from such plenty he sure of a crumb.
Thus he dreamed on his journey; but guess his sur-prise,
When come to the place where such bustle had been,
A high wooden wall hid it all from his eyes,
And an ant round about it was not to be seen.
Their doors were shut up till the summer returned,
Nor would one have come out had he stood for a day;
Again, in despair, with his wants he sojourned,
And sighed lone and sad on his sorrowful way.
He limped on his crutches in sorrow and pain,
With not a hope left to indulge his distress,
While snows spread a carpet all over the plain,
And hiding his path made him travel by guess.

He roamed through the wood, where he'd fain made a stop,
But hunger so painful still urged him away;
For the oak, though it rocked like a cradle at top,
Was as still at its root as a midsummer day,
Where the leaves that the wind whirligig'd to the ground,
And feathers pruned off from the crow's sooty wing,
Lie amid the green moss that is blooming around,
Undisturbed till the bird builds its nest in the spring.

The night came apace, and the clouds sailing bye
Wore the copper-flushed tints of the cold setting sun,
And crows to their rime-feathered forests did fly,
And owls round about had their whoopings begun.
He hopped through rough hedges and rude creaking wickets,
Till a shepherd's lodge-house in the fields met his eye,
Where he heard with surprise the glad chirping of crickets,
And hoped his companions and summer were nigh.

He paused with delight on the chitter and mirth,
And tried to steal in through a crack in the door,
When a cat, half asleep on the warm cottage hearth,
Dreamed a mouse made the rustle, and bounced
on the floor.
Our beggar, half frightened to death at the sight,
Hopped off, and retreated as fast as he could,
Better pleased to tramp on in the star-studded night,
Than hazard such danger for shelter and food.

In passing a barn he a dwelling espied,
Where silk hangings hung round the room like a hall,
In a crack of the wall. Once again he applied,
And who but a spider should come at the call;
The grasshopper said he was weary and lost,
And the spider gave welcome with cunning dis-guise;
Although a huge giant in size to his host,
Our beggar's heart trembled in terror's surprise.
For he set down before him dried wings of a fly,
And bade him with shy sort of welcome to eat,
But hunger found nothing its wants to supply,
And fear made him ready to sink through his seat.

Then to bed he went quaking with dread; well he might,
Where murdered things lay round the room in a heap!
Too true did he dream o'er his dangers that night,
For the spider watched chances, and killed him asleep.

In the morning a robin hopped down from his perch,
And fluttered about by the side of the wall,
When the murdering spider peeped out on the lurch,
And thought a new beggar was going to call.

The robin soon found what the spider was at,
And killed him, and bore the dead beggar away,
But whether to bury, or eat him, or what,
Is a secret he never would tell to this day.
Thus Idleness ever will sorrows attend,
Who often shakes hands with repentance too late,
And is forced to take up with a foe as a friend;
Then death and destruction are certain as fate.

Had the grasshopper ta'en the advice of the ant,
He had shunned the sad snares of bad company then,
And free, with his brothers and sisters, from want,
Had lived to see summer and singing again.