Poem Analysis,Subject Summarisation And Explanation : 'On The Grasshopper and Cricket' or 'The Poetry of Earth' by John Keats

About The Poem

The Class XII WBCHSE English B syllabus is full of sonnets! There are 3 sonnets out of the entire content of 4 poems.This poem is a finely written sonnet on nature ; contrasting the summer and winter seasons and inter-contrasting them with the call of two insects in order to bring the out the flavour of eternity in the poetry that nature writes - thus corresponding to the title of the poem.

Most international websites have used the title 'On The Grasshopper and Cricket' but strangely,this book uses the title 'The Poetry of Earth' ; not sure why they still try to add that composed touch to the original form,thus only dimming the brightness and the originality.Anyhow, read on to find out the complete explanation of the poem.

(Photograph Source)

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

By John Keats

(Credit : Source)

The Poetry of earth is never dead:    

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run    

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;    

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead      

  In summer luxury,—he has never done    

  With his delights; for when tired out with fun    

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.    

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    

  On a lone winter evening, when the frost     

    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills    

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,    

  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,    

    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

(Photograph Source)

Poem Analysis,Summarisation And Explanation

The poem introduces itself with a declarative sentence,a style you often observe within several romantic poets of the era.

The poet then explains how the grasshopper takes the lead in summer luxury and how it never has to think about completion of this task as whenever he is done with letting us know of his presence inside the newly mowed meadows,he takes rest under some pleasant weed.

We get to know the presence of the grasshopper as he lets out his call by hiding in cooling trees.This inter-contrasting soothes our senses ; we are relieved in our sub-conscious and this is where the success of the poem lies.

Again,in the winter - the poetry of earth unceasingly flows.On a lonely evening when the surroundings are frosty and there is an unbearable silence that disturbs our own very senses,from near a warm stove,the cricket lets us listen to his song.This increases the warmth in our souls - despite the awful coldness outside.This event,when experienced in a state of sleepiness,drowsiness - unmindfully ; gifts us the remembrance of the grasshopper's song among grassy hills in summer.The brilliance of the poem lies in this contrast and connection that it so blissfully establishes between completely opposite phenomena.The flow holds,we feel it,we are able to visualise how the eternal journey of the poetry of earth continues.

The last two lines remind me of something I have been thinking about lately - To be something is to be its compliment as much as to be that something.The complimentary existence ensures the existence of the sole phenomena much easily,much effortlessly.The poem is something you can call blissfully pleasant and delightfully crafted.

It has got a pattern of abba cddc efg efg and is an absolute delicacy to lay your satiety on.