The fire-fly, rising from the grass A winged and living light, I would not give for all the gas, That spoils their city sight. Not all the pomp and etiquette Of citizen or king, Shall make my rustic heart forget The song, the crickets sing.
I find in hall and gallery, Their figures tame and faint, To my wild bird, and brook, and tree, Without a touch of paint. And from the sweetest instrument Of pipe, or key, or string, I 'd turn away, and feel content To hear the crickets sing.
O! who could paint the placid moon, That 's beaming through the bough Of yon high elm, or play the tune, That sounds beneath it now? Not all the silver of the mine, Nor human power could bring Another moon like her to shine, Or make a cricket sing.
I know that, when the crickets trill Their plaintive strains by night, They tell us that, from vale and hill, The summer takes her flight. And were there no renewing Power, 'T would be a mournful thing, To think of fading leaf and flower; And hear the crickets sing.
But, why should change with sadness dim Our eye, when thought can range Through time and space, and fly to him, Who is without a change? For he, who meted out the year, Will give another spring: He rolls at once the shining sphere, And makes the cricket sing.
And when another autumn strips The summer leaves away, If cold and silent be the lips That breathed and moved to-day, The time I 've passed with nature's God Will cause no spirit sting, Though I 've adored him from the sod Whereon the crickets sing.
Give me back, give me back but my one infant dream, As it passed on the turf by my dear native stream, Where I slept from my play, while the wind tossed my hair, Till its ringlets, unbound, clasped the violets there.
O return, fleeting time, the soft moments that flew By the calm sinking sun, and the fall of the dew, When, refreshing as light, and as dew to the flower O'er my young spirit came the blest dream of that hour!
I remember the song of the bird, and the breeze With the perfumes it swept from the bloom of the trees, As my eyes gently closed; but the visions that stole Through my fancy's green bowers, come no more to my soul!
They were sweet but to pass, as the odors that fled From the young flowers I crushed, while they pillowed my head; And like them, when they flew on the wings of the air, They are gone, and have left not a trace to tell where!