The Cricket (Tuckerman)

I

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

II

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

III

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

IV

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

V

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