Poem for Thursday and Glenstone Water Court

On the Grasshopper and Cricket
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.

--------

We had a calm Wednesday around here, though I have several friends -- and my sister -- in New York and Connecticut who still have no power and I feel terrible for them because we got it so easy from the hurricane. I sorted several years' worth of beach photos from both Delaware and the Outer Banks and organized a bunch of writing, and took a walk during which I was delighted to discover that my neighbors who had moved away for a year to work elsewhere are settling back in!

We watched the near-final episodes of The 100 and Agents of SHIELD, both of which are having really good final seasons so I'll be sad to see them go although it's also definitely time. (Indra better survive and thrive, and Daisy had better too.) In between we watched Rise of the Mammals on PBS, which was fascinating. Here are some photos of the water court in the center of Glenstone's main pavilion, which has fish, frogs, dragonflies, and at this time of year many grasshoppers: