Explore "The Cricket" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. First of the insect choir, in the spring / We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass, / Beneath some blossom's rosy covering / Or frond of fern upon a wildwood pass. / When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras, / The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw's / Bee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras, / Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws, / Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere, -- / Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber's ear, -- / We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
II. All summer through the mellowing meadows thrill / To his blithe music. Be it day or night, / Close gossip of the grass, on field and hill / He serenades the silence with delight: / Silence, that hears the melon slowly split / With ripeness; and the plump peach, hornet-bit, / Loosen and fall; and everywhere the white, / Warm, silk-like stir of leafy lights that flit / As breezes blow; above which, loudly clear, -- / Like joy who sings of life and has no fear, -- / We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."