The poet means that people like to feel the warmth of summer even in bleak winter by mistaking the Cricket’s song for the Grasshopper’s. To a man who is feeling sleepy (in drowsiness half-lost) the Cricket’s song sounds like the Grasshopper’s voice among some grassy hills. Rather, his music gets louder with time (in warmth increasing ever). So, the chilly atmosphere forces the cricket to seek warmth indoors but cannot stop his music. In an isolated winter evening, when frost has put everyone and everything to silent mode, you can still hear the song of Cricket coming from the stove. The poet repeats the main theme of the sonnet that the voice of earth never comes to an end. The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills. The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,Īnd seems to one in drowsiness half lost, Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills He takes rest under the pleasant weeds only when he is ‘tired out with fun’. The Grasshopper is fun-loving and cheerful in summer. The Grasshopper has the luxury of taking over the duty of carrying on with the everlasting song of earth in summer, as he is ‘never done with his delights’. A voice which runs then from hedge to hedge and around the freshly-cut grasslands (mead) is the Grasshopper’s. Even when all the singing birds are tired in the hot summer and take shelter under the shady branches of trees, the nature’s song can still be heard. The sonnet opens with the poet asserting that the ‘poetry of earth’, the ‘voice of nature’ is always live. He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. With his delights for when tired out with fun That is the Grasshopper’s-he takes the lead When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,Īnd hide in cooling trees, a voice will runįrom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead On the Grasshopper and the Cricket: Explanation While the octet concentrates on the grasshopper’s voice in summer, the sestet deals with the cricket’s song in winter. Iambic Pentameter lines run through the entire poem. In its form, Keats’ poem is a Petrarchan / Italian sonnet with the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE. The sonnet is all about how the grasshopper and the cricket carry on with the endless song of the earth. Keats has introduced two little creatures – the grasshopper and the cricket, as the title of the poem suggests – to represent the vitality and joyous mood of nature even in the scorching hot of summer and in bleak and bitter cold of winter. The two opening lines of the octave and the sestet “The poetry of earth is never dead” and “The poetry of earth is ceasing never” say it all. To be precise, the poet here celebrates the ‘poetry of earth’ – the music of nature which is omnipresent. The poem was inspired by the beauty of nature, the most common theme among the Romantic poets. “On the grasshopper and the Cricket” by John Keats is a fine piece of sonnet written in December 1816.