Chapter 22

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend—The minute sound of many a sunny hourPassed on a thymy hill, when I could sendMy soul in search thereof by bank and bower,Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,Nodding too dangerously above the crag,Not to excite the passion and the powerTo climb the steep, and down the blossom drag;Then the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam,He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;All flying things alike delight have found—Where’er I gaze, to what new region turn,Ten thousand insects in the air abound,Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer’s sound.Jeremiah Holme Wiffin, 1792–1836.

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend—The minute sound of many a sunny hourPassed on a thymy hill, when I could sendMy soul in search thereof by bank and bower,Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,Nodding too dangerously above the crag,Not to excite the passion and the powerTo climb the steep, and down the blossom drag;Then the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam,He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;All flying things alike delight have found—Where’er I gaze, to what new region turn,Ten thousand insects in the air abound,Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer’s sound.Jeremiah Holme Wiffin, 1792–1836.

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend—The minute sound of many a sunny hourPassed on a thymy hill, when I could sendMy soul in search thereof by bank and bower,Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,Nodding too dangerously above the crag,Not to excite the passion and the powerTo climb the steep, and down the blossom drag;Then the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.

There is the grasshopper, my summer friend—

The minute sound of many a sunny hour

Passed on a thymy hill, when I could send

My soul in search thereof by bank and bower,

Till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,

Nodding too dangerously above the crag,

Not to excite the passion and the power

To climb the steep, and down the blossom drag;

Then the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.

Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam,He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;All flying things alike delight have found—Where’er I gaze, to what new region turn,Ten thousand insects in the air abound,Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer’s sound.Jeremiah Holme Wiffin, 1792–1836.

Shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,

Yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,

And creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam,

He spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,

'Mid chalices with dews in every urn;

All flying things alike delight have found—

Where’er I gaze, to what new region turn,

Ten thousand insects in the air abound,

Flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer’s sound.

Jeremiah Holme Wiffin, 1792–1836.


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