While walking along a Cornish lane near home, I saw a Swift swoop and glide over a tall green hedge ahead of me. The arrival of these beautiful birds who have flown all the way from Africa is a welcome sight, as they bring with them spring and summer days.

In this poem by Keats , he expresses his love of nature , the joy it can bring, and reminds us to enjoy it while we can. The line, ‘when all the birds are faint with the hot sun’, reminds me of childhood and empty summer holidays exploring the countryside. I’d take myself off to watch crickets, and discover other strange and fascinating bugs and beetles in some wild spot.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket.
A poem by John Keats.

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.