The Cricket (Tuckerman)

by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

For works with similar titles, see The Cricket.

I

¹ The humming bee purrs softly o'er his flower,
² From lawn and thicket
³ The dogday locust singeth in the sun,
⁴ From hour to hour;
⁵ Each has his bard, and thou, ere day be done
⁶ Shalt have no wrong;
⁷ So bright that murmur mid the insect crowd
⁸ Muffled and lost in bottom grass, or loud
⁹ By pale and picket:
¹⁰ Shall I not take to help me in my song
¹¹ A little cooing cricket?

II

¹²The afternoon is sleepy!, let us lie
¹³Beneath these branches, whilst the burdened brook
¹⁴Muttering and moaning to himself goes by,
¹⁵And mark our minstrel's carol, whilst we look
¹⁶Toward the faint horizon, swooning-blue.
¹⁷ Or in a garden bower
¹⁸Trellised and trammeled with deep drapery
¹⁹ Of hanging green;
²⁰ Light glimmering through:---
²¹ There let the dull hop be
²²Let bloom, with poppy's dark refreshing flower;
²³Let the dead fragrance round our temples beat,
²⁴Stunning the sense to slumber; whilst between
²⁵The falling water and fluttering wind
²⁶ Mingle and meet
²⁷ Murmur and mix,
²⁸No few faint pipings from the glades behind,
²⁹ Or alder-thicks;
³⁰But louder as the day declines,
³¹From tingling tassel blade and sheath,
³²Rising from nets of river-vines
³³ Winrows and ricks,
³⁴ Above, beneath,
³⁵ At every breath:---
³⁶At hand, around, illimitably
³⁷Rising and falling like the sea,
³⁸ Acres of cricks!

III

³⁹Dear to the child who hears thy rustling voice
⁴⁰Cease at his footstep, though he hears thee still,
⁴¹Cease and resume, with vibrance crisp and shrill,
⁴²Thou sittest in the sunshine to rejoice!;
⁴³Night lover too; bringer of all things dark,
⁴⁴And rest and silence; yet thou bringest to me
⁴⁵Always that burthen of the unresting sea
⁴⁶The moaning cliffs, the low rocks blackly stark;
⁴⁷These upland inland fields no more I view,
⁴⁸But the long flat seaside beach, the wild seamew,
⁴⁹ And the overturning wave!
⁵⁰Thou bringest too, dim accents from the grave
⁵¹To him who walketh when the day is dim,
⁵²Dreaming of those who dream no more of him---
⁵³With edg'd remembrances of joy and pain:
⁵⁴And heyday looks and laughter come again;
⁵⁵Forms that in happy sunshine lie and leap,
⁵⁶With faces where but now a gap must be
⁵⁷Renunciations, and partitions deep,
⁵⁸And perfect tears, and crowning vacancy!
⁵⁹And to thy poet at the twilights hush
⁶⁰No chirping touch of lips with tittering blush,
⁶¹But wringing arms, hearts wild with love and wo
⁶²Closed eyes, and kisses that would not let go.

IV

⁶³So wert thou loved in that old graceful time
⁶⁴ When Greece was fair,
⁶⁵While god and hero hearkened to thy chime
⁶⁶ Softly astir
⁶⁷Where the long grasses fringed Caÿster's lip---
⁶⁸Long-drawn, with shimmering sails of swan and ship
⁶⁹ And ship and swan---
⁷⁰ Or where
⁷¹ Reedy Eurotas ran.
⁷²Did that low warble teach they tender flute,
⁷³ Xenaphyle?
⁷⁴Its breathings mild? say! did the grasshopper
⁷⁵Sit golden in thy purple hair
⁷⁶ O Psammathe?
⁷⁷ Or wert thou mute
⁷⁸Grieving for Pan amid the alders there?
⁷⁹And by the water and along the hill
⁸⁰That thirsty tinkle in the herbage still,
⁸¹Though the lost forest wailed to horns of Arcady?
⁸² Like the Enchanter old---

V

⁸³Who sought mid the dead water's weeds and scum
⁸⁴For evil growths beneath the moonbeam cold,
⁸⁵ Or mandrake, or dorcynium;
⁸⁶And touched the leaf that opened both his ears
⁸⁷So that articulate voices now he hears
⁸⁸In cry of beast or bird or insect's hum---
⁸⁹Might I but find thy knowledge in thy song!
⁹⁰ That twittering tongue
⁹¹Ancient as light, returning like the years.
⁹² So might I be
⁹³Unwise to sing, thy true interpreter
⁹⁴Thro denser stillness and in sounder dark
⁹⁵Than ere thy notes have pierced to harrow me,
⁹⁶ So might I stir
⁹⁷ The world to hark
⁹⁸ To thee my lord and lawgiver
⁹⁹ And cease my quest,
¹⁰⁰Content to bring thy wisdom to the world
¹⁰¹Content to gain at last some low applause
¹⁰² Now low, now lost
¹⁰³Like thine from mossy stone amid the stems and straws
¹⁰⁴ Or garden-grave mound tricked and drest---
¹⁰⁵ Powdered and pearled
¹⁰⁶ By stealing frost---
¹⁰⁷In dusky rainbow-beauty of euphorbias!
¹⁰⁸For larger would be less indeed, and like
¹⁰⁹The ceaseless simmer in the summer grass
¹¹⁰To him who toileth in the windy field,
¹¹¹ Or where the sunbeams strike
¹¹²Naught in innumerable numerousness.
¹¹³ So might I much possess
¹¹⁴ So much must yield.
¹¹⁵But failing this, the dell and grassy dike
¹¹⁶The water and the waste shall still be dear
¹¹⁷ And all the pleasant plots and places
¹¹⁸Where thou hast sung and I have hung
¹¹⁹ To ignorantly hear.---
¹²⁰Then cricket sing thy song, or answer mine
¹²¹Thine whispers blame, but mine has naught but praises
¹²²It matters not.---Behold the autumn goes,
¹²³ The Shadow grows,
¹²⁴The moments take hold of eternity;
¹²⁵Even while we stop to wrangle or repine
¹²⁶ Our lives are gone
¹²⁷ Like thinnest mist,
¹²⁸Like yon escaping colour in the tree:---
¹²⁹Rejoice! rejoice! whilst yet the hours exist
¹³⁰Rejoice or mourn, and let the world swing on
¹³¹Unmoved by Cricket-song of thee or me.